Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 62
March 2004
Iorgov v. Bulgaria - 40653/98
Judgment 11.3.2004 [Section I]
Article 3
Inhuman treatment
Conditions of detention of a prisoner sentenced to death: violation
Facts: The applicant was sentenced to death in May 1990 and the Supreme Court upheld the sentence the following October. In the meantime, in July of that year, Parliament had adopted a decision deferring the execution of death sentences which had entered into force. The moratorium on execution of death sentences was maintained until 1998, when capital punishment was abolished. Until abolition, there was significant political debate in Bulgaria on the death penalty. Several attempts to reintroduce executions were defeated in Parliament. The applicant complained that his detention during the moratorium amounted to inhuman treatment, given the fear of a possible resumption of executions, as well as of the material conditions and regime of his detention (in particular between 1995 until 1998, when he was placed in solitary confinement and his sole human contact was during a one-hour daily walk with other prisoners).
Law: Article 3 – Although the Convention only came into force in respect of Bulgaria in 1992, and the Court’s competence ratione temporis went from this time until abolition in 1998, the whole period of the applicant’s detention could be taken into consideration to assess the applicant’s conditions of detention. Given the safeguards that existed during the period, the applicant’s situation was not comparable to that of a person on death row. Moreover, no violations of the moratorium occurred during that time. Whilst the applicant must have initially been in a state of uncertainty and fear in view of the possible resumption of executions, this anxiety must have diminished as time went on and the moratorium continued in force. The Court nevertheless considered that the stringent custodial regime to which the applicant had been subjected as from 1995, without the Government having invoked any particular security reasons, as well as the material conditions in which he was detained, must have caused him suffering exceeding the unavoidable level inherent in detention. Accordingly, the minimum threshold of severity under Article 3 had been reached and the applicant had been subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41 – The Court awarded the applicant 1,500 euros in respect of non-pecuniary damage, and made a further award for costs and expenses.
[NB. A similar judgment was delivered on the same day in the case of G.B. v. Bulgaria, 42346/98]
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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