Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 136
December 2010
Dobri v. Romania - 25153/04
Judgment 14.12.2010 [Section III]
Article 3
Degrading treatment
Positive obligations
Failure to test detainee for tuberculosis on arrival in prison: violation
Facts – On 20 October 2002 the applicant was taken into police custody and examined by a general practitioner, who declared him to be in good health with a normal respiratory system. The following day he was detained pending trial. In April 2003 he was sentenced to four years and six months’ imprisonment for aggravated theft. In July 2003 the applicant was transferred to a prison where doctors found that he was suffering from tuberculosis and provided him with appropriate treatment.
Law – Article 3: When the applicant had been taken into police custody on 20 October 2002 the doctor had concluded, after examining him but without specifically screening for tuberculosis, that in clinical terms he was in good health. Furthermore, the doctors who had treated the applicant between 1987 and 2002 for a liver condition had not detected any lung disease. In July 2003, approximately ten months after he had been taken into police custody, the prison hospital doctors had diagnosed the applicant with tuberculosis, and he had been provided with special treatment from September 2003 onwards. However, besides the positive obligation to preserve a prisoner’s health and well-being, in particular by administering the necessary medical treatment, the State had a prior positive obligation under Article 3 to carry out early screening of prisoners on their arrival in order to identify those carrying germs or contagious diseases, isolate them and provide them with effective treatment, especially as the prison authorities could not ignore infections among prisoners and thereby expose others to the real risk of contracting serious illnesses. The medical treatment provided to the applicant appeared to have been sufficient and appropriate. However, after suspecting that he might be suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis, the prison authorities had housed him in conditions likely to worsen his health (overcrowding and lack of hygiene). In any event, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it could be concluded that the applicant had developed tuberculosis while under the responsibility of the State, between the time he had been taken into police custody and the date on which the disease had been detected, on account of the poor conditions of his detention. The combination of those conditions and the tuberculosis developed by the applicant, over a period of more than eight months, amounted to degrading treatment.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41: EUR 12,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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