FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 49037/09
Sergejs DMITRIJEVS
against Latvia
lodged on 25 August 2009
STATEMENT OF FACTS
1. The applicant, Mr Sergejs Dmitrijevs, is a Latvian national, who was born in 1960 and lives in Rīga.
The circumstances of the case
2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
3. On an unknown date the applicant was convicted and sentenced to a life imprisonment which was afterwards changed to fifteen years’ imprisonment.
4. On 27 March 2001 the applicant started serving the prison sentence in a medium regime prison (vidējais soda izciešanas režīms). In 2005, following a decision adopted by the prison disciplinary commission, the applicant was supposed to be transferred to serve the prison sentence to a more stringent regime. There were delays in the transfer and in September 2005 the above decision was revoked. In October 2005 the decision was nevertheless executed and the applicant was transferred to the Daugavpils Prison where for two weeks he had been subjected to all the restrictions applicable to inmates serving a sentence in the lower prison regime, such as a right to access to physical activities only for one hour per day and other restrictions.
5. After a series of procedural decisions, on 6 November 2007 the Administrative District Court found that the applicant’s transfer to Daugavpils prison in order to serve the prison sentence under strict regime has been unlawful and awarded LVL 100 (EUR 150) in non-pecuniary damages.
6. The regional court partly upheld the decision and found that for a period of two weeks the applicant had unlawfully served the prison sentence under strict regime. It concluded that as a result the applicant had been unlawfully limited to only one hour of access to outdoor activities per day. He was accordingly awarded LVL 300 (EUR 450) in non-pecuniary damages.
7. Following an appeal submitted by the Prisons Administration, on 16 September 2009 the Senate of the Supreme Court quashed the appellate court’s decision and discontinued the administrative proceedings owing to the fact that the examination of decisions taken in the course of execution of prison sentences did not fall within the administrative court’s jurisdiction. The Senate also referred to section 16 of the Law of the Office of the Prosecutor and its powers to initiated investigation into violations of the rights of prisoners.
COMPLAINTS
8. The applicant complains in substance under Articles 3 and 13 that the national courts have failed to award him a compensation for a period in which he had unlawfully served the sentence in a more strict prison regime than the one he was entitled to.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Did the applicant have at his disposal an effective domestic remedy for his complaint under Article 3 of the Convention, as required by Article 13 of the Convention? If so, did the applicant exhaust the remedies?
2. Did the conditions of the applicant’s unlawful detention under the strict regime in October 2005 in the Daugavpils Prison amount to treatment prohibited by Article 3 of the Convention?
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