Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 121
July 2009
Sulejmanovic v. Italy - 22635/03
Judgment 16.7.2009 [Section II]
Article 3
Degrading treatment
Inhuman treatment
Clear lack of personal space in detention: violation
Lack of personal space considered in light of other conditions of detention: no violation
Facts: The applicant had been convicted a number of times on charges of robbery, attempted theft, handling stolen goods and forgery. In 2003 he was sentenced to one year, nine months and five days’ imprisonment and incarcerated in Rebibbia prison in Rome. During his detention he was placed in different cells each measuring 16.2 sq.m, with an adjoining 5.04 sq.m space containing sanitary facilities. He shared these cells with other prisoners. In October 2003 the applicant was granted a remission of sentence and released.
Law: While the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture has set 7 sq.m per prisoner as a desirable guideline for a detention cell (see the second general report – CPT/Inf (92) 3, § 43), it was not for the Court to say once and for all exactly how much space each detainee should be given for the purposes of the Convention, as a number of factors could come into play, such as the length of the detention, access to an outdoor exercise area, or the prisoner’s mental and physical condition .
Period up to April 2003: The applicant claimed that from 30 November 2002 until April 2003 he had been held in a 16.2 sq.m cell that he shared with five other detainees. Even assuming that, as the Government had submitted, the cell concerned was occupied by six prisoners only from 17 January 2003, that nevertheless meant that for over two and a half months each prisoner had had no more than 2.7 sq.m of living space. Such a situation must have been a daily source of discomfort and inconvenience for the applicant, obliged as he was to live in a space much smaller than that deemed desirable by the CPT. This blatant lack of personal space the applicant had had to endure amounted in itself to inhuman or degrading treatment.
Conclusion: violation (five votes to two).
Period after April 2003: After that initial period and until his release, the applicant had had 3.24 sq.m, 4.05 sq.m and 5.4 sq.m respectively in his subsequent cells, which represented a marked improvement in his situation. Although there had no doubt been a problem of overcrowding in the prison at the time of the applicant’s detention, the maximum capacity had been exceeded by only 14.5 to 30%, which seemed to indicate that overcrowding at the time had not reached dramatic proportions. Furthermore, the applicant had not complained of any problem of heating or access to or quality of sanitary facilities. Indeed his cell had had an adjoining space of about 5 sq.m containing sanitary facilities. Nor had he explained exactly what repercussions his conditions of detention had had on his physical health. The Court further noted that the detainees had had access to the exercise yard for four hours and thirty minutes every day. They were also allowed to leave their cells to go to the showers, play table tennis and buy food. They could also eat their dinner in cells other than their own. So, in all, detainees could spend up to eight hours and fifty minutes outside their cells. The applicant had thus had sufficient access to natural light and fresh air and to leisure activities and social contact with detainees other than those with whom he shared his cell. Therefore, during the period when the applicant had had more than 3 sq.m of personal space – and prison overcrowding had not, in itself, been such as to raise a problem under Article 3 – the treatment to which the applicant had been subjected had not attained the minimum level of severity required to fall within the scope of Article 3 of the Convention.
Conclusion: no violation (unanimously).
Article 41 – EUR 1,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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