THIRD SECTION
Application no. 39951/08
Ioan BRÂNDUŞE
against Romania
lodged on 18 July 2008
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Ioan Brânduşe, is a Romanian national, who was born in 1951 and lives in Şomoşcheş, Arad County.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarized as follows.
At the date of the events of the present case, the applicant was serving a prison sentence for fraud. He was held mainly in Arad and Timișoara Prisons. In 2008 he spent some time in Jilava Prison, in cell no. 309 which, according to the applicant’s description, was dirty and lacked access to warm water.
On several occasions the applicant was kept in the courts’ detention rooms where other detainees and the guards were allowed to smoke. According to the applicant, such an episode of exposure to smoke in the Arad County Court detention room occurred on 15 December 2008.
On 30 November 2008 the applicant was not allowed to vote in the parliamentary elections and, despite his requests for clarifications, the prison authorities gave him no explanations as to whether he was entitled to vote or not.
On 21 December 2009 the applicant was released on probation.
B. Relevant domestic law
The relevant provisions of the Criminal Code providing the automatic withdrawal of the right to vote and to be elected during the execution of a prison sentence, read as follows:
Article 64 – Additional penalties
“Disqualification from exercising one or more of the rights mentioned below may be imposed as an additional penalty:
(a) the right to vote and to be elected to bodies of a public authority or to public elective office; ...”
Article 71 – Secondary penalty
“The secondary penalty shall consist in disqualification from exercising all the rights listed in Article 64.
(2) A life sentence or any other prison sentence shall automatically entail disqualification from exercising the rights referred to in the preceding paragraph from the time at which the conviction becomes final until the end of the term of imprisonment or the granting of a pardon waiving the execution of the sentence ...”
In its decision of 5 November 2007 (following an appeal in the interests of the law) which became mandatory on the date of its publication in the Official Gazette on 18 July 2008, the High Court of Cassation and Justice advised the domestic courts to interpret Article 71 § 2 of the Criminal Code in the light of the Convention, and thus assess in each case the necessity of the withdrawal of the right to vote.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains under Article 3 of the Convention about the conditions of his detention in Jilava Prison and about the fact that he was kept with smokers in the courts’ detention facilities.
Relying in substance on Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, he also complains that he was not allowed to vote in the parliamentary elections of 30 November 2008.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Were the conditions of the applicant’s detention in Jilava Prison and in the courts’ detention facilities in breach of the requirements of Article 3 of the Convention?
The Government are invited to provide information on the material conditions of detention of the applicant in cell no. 309 in Jilava, in particular as regards the cleanliness and facilities, as well as on those in the courts’ detention rooms, in particular concerning smoking.
2. Has there been a breach of the applicant’s right under Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention on account of the withdrawal of his right to vote during the time he was serving his prison sentence (Cucu v. Romania, no. 22362/06, § 111, 13 November 2012)?
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