Communicated on 14 February 2014
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 43545/13
Vasilică MOCANU
against Romania
lodged on 1 July 2013
STATEMENT OF FACTS
1. The applicant, Mr Vasilică Mocanu, is a Romanian national born in 1972. He is currently detained at the Focşani Penitentiary.
2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
3. From 7 March to 14 March 2013, the applicant was detained at the Buzău Police Inspectorate. The applicant occupied cell no. 2. The cell had nineteen or twenty square meters and was shared by six inmates, out of whom three were smokers, while the applicant was a non-smoker. The cell was located in the basement and was not properly ventilated. Both the bars and the net covering the window were dirty and full of spider webs, of dead insects and of dust, which prevented the fresh air and natural light from entering. A squat toilet was located in a corner of the room, separated by Plexiglas walls. The toilet did not have an access door, being separated by a shower curtain from the rest of the cell. It had no window and the smell persisted into the cell. There was no water reservoir and the detainees were using wash basins to pour water into the toilet. There was no source of drinkable water in the room and the detainees had to drink water directly from the shower hose located in the toilet cabin.
4. There was a video surveillance camera in the applicant's cell, which operated continuously. The applicant was thus filmed when changing his cloths or coming out of the shower with a towel around his waist.
5. On 21 March 2013, the applicant lodged a complaint against the Buzău Police Inspectorate in relation to the material conditions of his detention and to his surveillance by video camera.
6. By decision of 2 April 2013, the delegate judge dismissed as ill‑founded the applicant's complaint.
7. The applicant contested this decision before the Focşani Court of First Instance.
8. By judgment of 3 June 2013, the court dismissed the applicant's complaint against the delegate judge's decision. It held that the applicant had not requested his placement in a non-smoking cell upon his incarceration. It noted that the applicant's material condition of detention in respect of the size of the cell were in conformity with the domestic standards and regulations. It stated that the aim of the surveillance video camera was only to monitor the activity of the detainees in order to prevent any suicide attempt or other disciplinary issues and not to record the video and audio data obtained through the surveillance.
9. On 14 March 2013, the applicant was transferred to the Focşani Penitentiary, where he is currently serving a five years and six months' imprisonment sentence.
COMPLAINTS
10. The applicant complains under Article 3 of the Convention of the inhuman or degrading treatment caused by the material conditions of his detention at the Buzău Police Inspectorate.
11. He also complains, under Article 8 of the Convention, of a breach of the right to respect for his private life caused by his continuous filming, by a video surveillance camera, during his detention at the Buzău Police Inspectorate.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has the applicant been subjected, in breach of Article 3 of the Convention, to inhuman or degrading treatment during his detention at the Buzău Police Inspectorate?
The Government are invited to provide information on the applicant's condition of detention at the Buzău Police Inspectorate, in particular in connection with:
(a) the material conditions of the applicant's cell (the size, the number of beds and the number of persons being detained in the same cell with the applicant ; whether he was with smokers or not);
(b) the ventilation available in the cell (number of windows, their size, the existence and size of nets and/or metal bars);
(c) the sanitary installation available in the cell;
(d) the measures taken to ensure the hygiene in the cell;
2. Has there been an interference with the right to respect for the applicant's private life, within the meaning of Article 8 § 1 of the Convention, regarding his alleged continuous filming, by a video surveillance camera, during his detention at the Buzău Police Inspectorate? If so, was this interference in accordance with the law and necessary in terms of Article 8 § 2 of the Convention?
The Government are invited to provide information on the legal basis of the applicant's surveillance by video camera in the cells located on the police premises.
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy