Published on 9 October 2023
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 17201/23
József OTTLAKÁN
against Hungary
lodged on 13 April 2023
communicated on 18 September 2023
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the right to an effective remedy with regard to inadequate conditions of detention in the particular circumstances of the applicant, who was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole in 2013.
On 28 October 2020 the Szeged High Court awarded him 585,600 Hungarian forints (approximately 1,600 euros) in compensation for poor prison conditions in which he had been held between March 2019 and July 2020, by way of a compensatory remedy. The Court considered that remedy effective for Convention purposes in the case of Domján v. Hungary ((dec.), no. 5433/17, 14 November 2017).
At the material time, the disbursement of awards for poor prison conditions was suspended by law. Further amendments to Act no. CCXL of 2013 on the enforcement of punishments, measures, certain coercive measures and confinement for regulatory offences were adopted by the Hungarian Parliament by 1 January 2021. Under the new rules, if the person concerned is still detained, the compensation award is to be paid to the detainee’s penitentiary escrow account and set aside until his or her release, purportedly “supporting his or her reintegration”. In enumerated circumstances (health issues, death in the family or property damage) and based on the decision of the prison governor, the award can be paid to a relative or a contact person, although not for daily expenses. The applicant submits that, as a result of this scheme, he cannot have access to the amount granted to him or dispose of it.
The applicant complains under Article 3 taken alone and in conjunction with Article 13 of the Convention that, in the particular situation of persons sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, the withholding by the authorities of the compensation award with a view to reintegration to society is, in his words, “nonsensical” and amounts to removing the effective character of the Domján-type domestic remedy in respect of detainees in a similar situation. Consequently, he is still a victim of a violation of Article 3 on account of the poor prison conditions.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Can the applicant still claim to be a victim of a violation of Article 3 of the Convention in respect of inadequate conditions of his detention from 23 March 2019 to 24 July 2020?
2. Did the applicant have at his disposal an effective domestic remedy for his complaint under Article 3, as required by Article 13 of the Convention? In particular, did the compensatory remedy examined by the Court in the case of Domján v. Hungary ((dec.), no. 5433/17, 14 November 2017) afford appropriate relief to the applicant for the purposes of Article 13 of the Convention?