20 November 2009
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 6674/06
by Vladimirs GUBENKO
against Latvia
lodged on 8 December 2006
STATEMENT OF FACTS
THE FACTS
The applicant, Mr Vladimirs Gubenko, is a permanently resident non-citizen of Latvia who was born in 1976 and lives in Jēkabpils.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
The applicant was serving a prison sentence in Daugavpils prison. He was a follower of the Hare Krishna movement. On 2 October 2006 he petitioned the director of the prison to be allowed to keep in his cell an audio cassette player with headphones and cassettes with recordings of religious programmes and services, prayer beads for chanting Maha Mantra, and other attributes for prayers and religious rites.
On 9 October 2006 the director denied his request, indicating that according to Regulation No. 423 of the Cabinet of Ministers (see below) prisoners were not allowed to possess the mentioned objects.
That response was upheld by the Prison Administration (Ieslodzījuma vietu pārvalde) on 27 October 2006.
On 30 October 2006 the Ministry of Justice wrote to the applicant, noting that the list of permissible objects contained in the Regulation was insufficiently complete and its frequently restrictive application by prisons made it difficult for prisoners to receive various objects. The Ministry informed the applicant that it would take into account his comments when drafting future amendments to the existing legal regulation.
The applicant then attempted to dispute the constitutionality of the Regulation in the Constitutional Court. On 7 November 2006 a committee of three judges of that court adopted a decision to refuse to initiate a case. The decision noted that the applicant argued that the Regulation’s exclusion of religious objects contravened the Constitution and Article 9 of the Convention. The court then ruled that it was only competent to rule on the constitutionality of a legal regulation that was included in legal norms, rather than one that was missing from those norms.
B. Relevant domestic law
Regulation No. 423 of the Cabinet of Ministers, entitled “The Internal Rules of Order of an Institution of Deprivation of Liberty” (Brīvības atņemšanas iestādes iekšējās kārtības noteikumi) in the relevant parts provides that convicts may only keep in their cells a limited range of objects, which is exhaustively listed in amendment no. 1 of that Regulation. The list in the amendment does not include any such objects of a religious character as were requested by the applicant.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains under Article 9 of the Convention about the prohibition on keeping religious objects in his cell.
In a letter of 30 March 2007, the applicant invoked Articles 1, 2, 3, 7, and 17 of the Convention as well as Article 2 of Protocol No. 7 thereto and complained that the administration of the Daugavpils prison refused to reply to his complaints which had been formulated in the Russian language and that his correspondence was regularly delayed and/or controlled by the administration.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Has there been an interference with the applicant’s freedom of religion, within the meaning of Article 9 § 1 of the Convention? If so, was that interference necessary in terms of Article 9 § 2?
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