Communicated on 22 March 2016
THIRD SECTION
Applications nos. 10270/11 and 56201/13
Natalya KOSTROMINA against Russia
Dmitriy VASILYEV against Russia
lodged on 14 January 2011 and 7 May 2013
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The facts of the cases, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.
A. Application no. 10270/11
The applicant, Ms Natalya Borisovna Kostromina, is a Russian national who was born in 1978 and lives in Syktyvkar in the Komi Republic of the Russian Federation. She is represented before the Court by Mr E. Mezak, a lawyer practising in Syktyvkar.
The applicant suffers from obesity caused by type 2 diabetes.
In June 2010 the Komi investigators asked the penitentiary service to organise the applicant’s transport from the IK-3 correctional facility in Kineshma in the Ivanovo Region – where she was serving her sentence – to the IZ-11/1 remand prison in Syktyvkar.
The transport began on 25 June 2010 when the applicant left the Kineshma facility and ended on 18 July 2010 when she arrived at the Syktyvkar remand prison. She transited through remand prisons in Ivanovo, Yaroslavl and Sosnogorsk.
During that period, the applicant was transported by a prison van on seven occasions:
- from the IK-3 facility to the Ivanovo remand prison (two hours);
- from the remand prison to the Ivanovo railway station (one hour);
- from the Yaroslavl railway station to the remand prison (one hour);
- from the Yaroslavl remand prison to the railway station (one hour);
- from the Sosnogorsk railway station to the remand prison (one hour);
- from the Sosnogorsk remand prison to the railway station(one hour);
- from the Syktyvkar railway station to the remand prison (one hour).
Each time the applicant was placed into a solitary confinement compartment of a GAZ prison van, together with another identified detainee (Ms Yu. N.) who was also transported from Kineshma to Syktyvkar. The compartment measured 0.4-0.5 square metre and was designed for transporting just one person. The applicant’s suffering was aggravated on account of her medical condition (diabetes) and the unusually hot summer in the European part of Russia in 2010.
In his letter of 6 June 2011 to a member of the public supervising commission, the deputy head of the Yaroslavl penitentiary service explained that the applicant and Ms N. had been placed together in the solitary confinement compartment measuring 0.49 square metre in order to separate them from male prisoners who were transported in the other compartments.
B. Application no. 56201/13
The applicant, Mr Dmitriy Lvovich Vasilyev, is a Russian national who was born in 1958 and lives in Pechora. He is represented before the Court by Mr E. Mezak, a lawyer practising in Syktyvkar.
Between 2007 and 2013 the applicant served a custodial sentence in the IK-54 correctional facility in Novaya Lyalya in the Sverdlovsk Region.
1. Transport from the correctional facility to the remand prison
At about 11 p.m. on 10 November 2012 the applicant and seven other detainees were loaded into a compartment of a GAZ prison van. The compartment measured approximately 3 square metres and the detainees had their personal belongings with them, in bulky bags weighing up to 20 kilograms. The detainees were in the van for one hour, first in transit to the railway station and later as they waited for the train to arrive.
At about midnight the applicant was transferred to a prisoner carriage coupled with a passenger train bound for Yekaterinburg. During the eight-hour journey to Yekaterinburg, the two-hours’ shunting onto a side line at Yekaterinburg station and the two-hour wait for a police escort, the applicant was kept with between nine and thirteen other prisoners in a compartment measuring 3.4 square metres. The compartment was equipped with six full sleeping berths, placed vertically three on each side, which were 2 metres long and 60 cm wide. There was also a shorter “bridge” berth, fixed between the middle berths, which was 1.6 metres long and 50 cm wide. The bridge berth prevented prisoners from standing upright inside the compartment. The prisoners’ bags further reduced the already restricted space. There was no table or light in the compartment and bedding was not provided.
In Yekaterinburg, the applicant and thirteen other prisoners were taken to the IZ-66/1 remand prison in the compartment of a Kamaz prison van. The compartment measured 4.5 square metres.
The journey ended at 1 p.m. on 11 November 2012 after a total duration of fourteen hours.
2. Return journey from the remand prison to the correctional facility
The return journey began at 5 p.m. on 24 November 2012, when the applicant and thirteen other prisoners were taken to the railway station by the Kamaz prison van. They were again crammed into a compartment of 4.5 square metres for the two-hour trip.
From 7 p.m. on 24 November 2012 to 4 a.m. the following day, the applicant was transported in the prisoner carriage, with between nine and eleven other prisoners. The compartment was identical in size and layout to the one in which he had travelled earlier.
At Novaya Lyalya station, the applicant and seven other prisoners were again loaded into the GAZ prison van’s compartment of 3 square metres. They got out one hour later at the correctional facility.
In total, the applicant spent more than twelve hours in transit in cramped conditions.
C. Relevant domestic law and practice
A joint order of the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of the Interior of 24 May 2006 (no. 199dsp/369dsp), approving an Instruction on the professional activities of special departments of the penitentiary system in charge of conveyance (the “Conveyance Instruction”), has not been officially published and its text is not available. However, it can be understood from various judicial decisions that point 167 of the Conveyance Instruction provided as follows:
(1) the normative occupancy rate in a railway carriage must not exceed twelve people in a large compartment or five people in a small compartment;
(2) if the transfer time is below four hours, it is permissible to place up to sixteen people in a large compartment, or up to six people in a small compartment;
(3) a prison van with a carrying capacity of up to 2 tons may carry up to thirteen prisoners; a van up to 3 tons may carry up to twenty-one prisoners; and a van with a capacity of up to 4 tons may transport up to thirty-six prisoners.
By a judgment of 13 October 2011, as upheld on appeal on 27 December 2011, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dismissed a legal challenge to paragraph one of point 167 of the Conveyance Instruction (case no. ГКПИ11-1143). It found that the normative occupancy rate conformed to the technical specifications of the carriage and to health and safety regulations and that there was no indication that such conditions could be constitutive of torture or inhuman treatment.
On 24 January 2012 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation upheld in part a subsequent legal challenge to paragraphs two and three of point 167 of the Conveyance Instruction (case no. ГКПИ11-1774, judgment upheld on appeal on 17 April 2012). The court found:
“It has been established that remand and convicted prisoners are transported by railway in carriages that are a modified version of a standard passenger carriage. Carriages for prisoners can have either nine compartments (5 large and 4 small), or eight compartments (5 large and 3 small). A large compartment is fitted with six berths and one removable berth; its design capacity is five places for sleeping and eight for sitting, with four people sitting on each of the lower berths. A small compartment is fitted with three berths, designed for two people sleeping and four sitting.
Since 2004, the TsMV61-4500 carriage has been used for transporting prisoners. According to its technical specifications, the carriage has eight compartments (5 large and 3 small) and a seating capacity of 85 places (10 places for warders and 75 places for prisoners); it has ventilation and air conditioning, lighting, heating and a toilet; all windows are fitted with bars which allow for the opening of windows for ventilation by pulling the window frame down. The compartments themselves have no windows, however ... they are not separated by a wall but by metal bars and a door with bars, meaning they form a single space with the corridor.
...
According to the technical specifications, a large compartment measures 205 by 150.9 cm, and a small one 205 by 100 cm; a berth is 205 cm long; the passage between berths is 47 cm wide.
Accommodating six prisoners in a small compartment ... does not exceed the design capacity and is compatible with international and federal law.
A representative of the Penitentiary Service explained to the court that sixteen prisoners are placed in large compartments in the following manner: five prisoners on each of the lower berths, one prisoner on each of the upper berths, and four people on the middle berths with the removable berth installed between them.
Having regard to the size of the berths and the width of the removable berth (no more than 47 cm), the court considers that placing sixteen prisoners in a large compartment that has five sleeping and eight sitting places must be excessively uncomfortable for them and is incompatible with the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. Accordingly, paragraph 2 of point 167 of the Instruction must be declared invalid in the relevant part.
...
In accordance with industry standard PR 78.01.0024-2010 “Operative and service vans for transporting suspects and defendants”, adopted on 14 October 2010 (which replaced standard 78.01.0002-99 of 1 June 1999), prison vans are manufactured on the chassis of trucks, passenger cars, vans or buses; they may only transport people who are seated; they are equipped with heating, ventilation, lighting and composting toilets (for more than seven prisoners) (points 4.3, 4.5, 5.4, 5.8, 5.9, 5.10); they feature one or two multi-occupancy cells and solitary confinement cells that are equipped with benches; a multi-occupancy bench must provide at least 45 cm per person, a single seat should be at least 42 cm wide; the minimum dimensions for a solitary confinement cell are 50 by 65 cm ...
Thus, the type approval of a prison van on the GAZ-3307 chassis provides for two multi-occupancy cells and one solitary confinement cell, for a total passenger capacity of 25 people, of which 21 are prisoners. The type approval of the KAMAZ-4308 prison van provides for a capacity of 37 people, of which 6 are prison guards and 31 are prisoners.
Therefore, the normative seating capacity, as established in paragraph 3 of point 167 of the Conveyance Instruction, is compatible with the technical specifications of the vehicles in question. The regulation is not in breach of Article 3 of the European Convention ... [because] the transfer of prisoners by a van which is in compliance with the normative seating capacity set out in paragraph 3 of point 167 of the Instruction is not, in itself, constitutive of torture, or cruel or inhuman treatment.”
D. Relevant international material
The Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, adopted by the First United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, held at Geneva in 1955, and approved by the Economic and Social Council by its resolution 663 C (XXIV) of 31 July 1957 and 2076 (LXII) of 13 May 1977, provide, in particular, as follows:
Removal of prisoners
“45. (1) When the prisoners are being removed to or from an institution, they shall be exposed to public view as little as possible, and proper safeguards shall be adopted to protect them from insult, curiosity and publicity in any form.
(2) The transport of prisoners in conveyances with inadequate ventilation or light, or in any way which would subject them to unnecessary physical hardship, shall be prohibited.
(3) The transport of prisoners shall be carried out at the expense of the administration and equal conditions shall obtain for all of them.”
COMPLAINT
The applicants complain under Article 3 of the Convention that they were transported in inhuman conditions.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Were the conditions of the applicants’ transport by prison van and railway carriage compatible with the requirements of Article 3 of the Convention?
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