FOURTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 22085/17
Ghiță MERCEA
against Romania
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 8 December 2022 as a Committee composed of:
Armen Harutyunyan, President,
Anja Seibert-Fohr,
Ana Maria Guerra Martins, judges,
and Viktoriya Maradudina, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 10 March 2017,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
FACTS AND PROCEDURE
The applicant, Mr. Ghiță Mercea, was born in 1958.
The applicant’s complaint under Article 3 of the Convention concerning the inadequate conditions of detention was communicated to the Romanian Government (“the Government”).
THE LAW
In the present application, having examined all the material before it, the Court considers that for the reasons stated below, the application is inadmissible.
In particular, the Court notes that the applicant complained about the conditions of detention served between 7 March 2013 and 16 December 2017 in the Arad and Timișoara Prisons.
His complaint concerning the conditions of detention for the period between 30 March 2016 and 16 December 2017 was rejected at the communication stage, as 126 days were deducted from the applicant’s sentence as compensation mostly for a total period of 648 days spent in detention in inadequate conditions in the Timișoara Prison.
The Government argued that, having regard to the fact that the application with the Court was lodged on 10 March 2017, the applicant’s complaint in respect of the remaining period of imprisonment, that is the one between 7 March 2013 and 29 March 2016, is inadmissible as it had been lodged outside the six-month time-limit. From the information submitted by the Government, it transpires that the applicant was held between 31 May and 13 June 2016 (for 14 days) in the Dej Prison Hospital, a detention facility of which he does not complain.
The applicant did not challenge the Government’s submissions.
Against this background, the Court must determine whether the applicant complied with the six-month time-limit established by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention.
The Court reiterates that, in the absence of an effective remedy for complaints about inadequate conditions of detention, Article 35 § 1 of the Convention permits it to deal with a matter only if the application is lodged within six months of the date of the cessation of that situation (see Iacov Stanciu v. Romania, no. 35972/05, §136, 24 July 2012).
The Court further reiterates that a period of detention should be regarded as a “continuing situation” if the detention has been effected in the same type of detention facility in substantially similar conditions. The applicant’s release or transfer to a different type of detention regimen, either within or outside the facility, would put an end to the “continuing situation” (see Ananyev and Others v. Russia, nos. 42525/07 and 60800/08, § 78, 10 January 2012).
In the absence of a description whatsoever of the conditions of detention in the Dej Prison Hospital, the Court cannot conclude that the applicant was detained in identical or substantially similar conditions. Thus, it finds that the period between 31 May and 13 June 2016, notwithstanding its short duration of fourteen days, interrupted the continuous situation of the applicant’s detention (see Abdilla v. Malta, no. 36199/15, § 28, 17 July 2018).
Given this interruption and taking into account the fact that the application was introduced on 10 March 2017, the applicant’s complaint about the conditions of his detention between 7 March 2013 and 30 March 2016 was submitted out of the six-month time-limit (see Cloşcă and Others v. Romania, nos. 54609/15 and 2 others, § 13, 8 October 2020).
In view of the above, the Court finds that this complaint has been introduced out of time and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 12 January 2023.
Viktoriya Maradudina Armen Harutyunyan
Acting Deputy Registrar President