Resolution CM/ResDH(2010)6[1]
Execution of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights
Wisse against France
(Application No. 71611/01, judgment of 20 December 2005, final on 20 March 2006)
The Committee of Ministers, under the terms of Article 46, paragraph 2, of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which provides that the Committee supervises the execution of final judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter “the Convention” and “the Court”);
Having regard to the judgment transmitted by the Court to the Committee once it had become final;
Recalling that the violation of the Convention found by the Court in this case concerns the recording of detainees’ conversations with their relatives in detention centres’ visiting rooms from November 1998 to February 1999, which was not “in accordance with the law” (violation of Article 8) (see details in Appendix);
Having invited the government of the respondent state to inform the Committee of the measures taken to comply with its obligation under Article 46, paragraph 1, of the Convention to abide by the judgment;
Having examined the information provided by the government in accordance with the Committee’s Rules for the application of Article 46, paragraph 2, of the Convention;
Recalling that a finding of violations by the Court requires, over and above the payment of just satisfaction awarded by the Court in its judgments, the adoption by the respondent state, where appropriate:
- of individual measures to put an end to the violations and erase their consequences so as to achieve as far as possible restitutio in integrum; and
- of general measures preventing similar violations;
DECLARES, having examined the measures taken by the respondent state (see Appendix), that it has exercised its functions under Article 46, paragraph 2, of the Convention in this case and
DECIDES to close the examination of this case.
Appendix to Resolution CM/ResDH(2010)6
Information about the measures to comply with the judgment in the case of
Wisse against France
Introductory case summary
This case concerns a breach of the applicants’ right to respect for their private and family life in that from November 1998 to February 1999, while they were in detention on remand, their conversations with their relatives in visiting rooms were recorded (violation of Article 8). The criminal proceedings against them resulted, in 2002, in the applicants being sentenced respectively to 25 and 20 years imprisonment by the Ille-et-Vilaine Assize Court (first degree of jurisdiction). They did not appeal this decision.
According to the European Court, the systematic recording of conversations in a visiting room for purposes other than prison security is a denial of the sole purpose of such facilities, namely to allow detainees to maintain some degree of “private life”, including the privacy of conversations with their families. In this respect the European Court considered that French law did not indicate with sufficient clarity how and to what extent the authorities could interfere with detainees’ private lives, or the scope and manner of exercise of their powers of discretion in that sphere.
I.Individual measures
In its (partial) decision on the admissibility of this application, the European Court rejected the applicants’ complaint that the criminal proceedings had been unfair on account of the use of the recordings as evidence against them (complaint under Article 6§1) for non exhaustion of domestic remedies.
In its judgment, the European Court considered that the finding of the violation constituted in itself sufficient just satisfaction for the non-pecuniary damage suffered by the applicants.
Concerning the fate of the recordings, the authorities indicated that Article 706-102 provides the destruction of sound or video recordings under the responsibility of the Procureur de la République or of the Procureur général upon expiry of the prescription period for the public action. An official report of the destruction is produced. This disposition is, as a procedural rule, of immediate applicability even to offences committed prior to the law, and can thus be applied to the present case.
General measures
Concerning the general measures this case is similar to the case Vetter (application no. 59842/00) CM/ResDH(2010)5.
III.Conclusions of the respondent state
The government considers that the measures adopted have fully remedied the consequences for the applicant of the violation of the Convention found by the European Court in this case, that these measures will prevent similar violations and that France has thus complied with its obligations under Article 46, paragraph 1, of the Convention.
[1] Adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 4 March 2010 at the 1078th meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies.
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