Communicated on 3 April 2017
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 41234/16
Aleksey Gennadyevich TOMOV and others
against Russia
lodged on 2 July 2016
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicants are:
(a) Mr Aleksey Gennadyevich Tomov, born in 1966 in the Komi Republic, who was given a custodial sentence on 19 November 2015 by the Syktyvdinskiy District Court in the Komi Republic;
(b) Mr Nikolay Konstantinovich Roshka, born in 1965 in Moldova, who was given a custodial sentence on 13 May 2015 by the Syktyvkar Town Court;
(c) Mr Nikita Valeryevich Barinov, born in 1990 in Syktyvkar, who was given a custodial sentence on 16 November 2015 by the Ukhta Town Court.
The applicants are represented by Mr E. Mezak, a human-rights defender from Syktyvkar.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.
A. Conditions of transport
From 18 December 2015 until 16 January 2016 the applicants were in transit between the IZ-11/1 remand prison in Syktyvkar and the IK-23 high‑security penal facility in the Murmansk Region. The distance between the start and end points of the journey is approximately 2,200 kilometres. The applicants provided a detailed description of the conditions of transfer.
From 3.30 p.m. to 5.00 p.m. on 18 December 2015 the applicants were taken in a Kamaz-4308 prison van to the Syktyvkar railway station. Eight prisoners were transported, together with bulky luggage, in a compartment measuring 4.3 square metres.
From 5.00 p.m. on 18 December until 6.00 p.m. on the following day (twenty-five hours) the same eight prisoners, including the applicants, were transported by rail to Ukhta. They shared the compartment measuring 3.4 square metres of the TsMV[1] 61-512 prison railcar.
After a three-night stay at the Sosnogorsk remand prison, the prisoners were brought back to the Ukhta railway station. From 10.00 a.m. on 22 December until 7.30 a.m. on the following day (twenty-one hours) they were transferred by rail from Ukhta to Vologda in a 3.3-square-metre compartment of the TsMV 61-827 prison railcar.
The applicants spent thereafter almost three weeks in a Vologda remand centre.
On 13 January 2016 the transfer resumed. From 3.40 p.m. to 5.40 p.m. fifteen prisoners, including the applicants, were taken in a Kamaz-4308 prison van to the Vologda station. They had to share a single van compartment measuring 4.3 square metres.
From 5.40 p.m. on 13 January until 8.10 a.m. on 16 January (sixty-two hours) twelve prisoners, including the applicants, were transferred in a 3.1‑square-metre compartment of a TsMV 61-4500 railcar from Vologda to Olenegorsk in the Murmansk Region. Their plight was aggravated by a fifteen-hour stop in St Petersburg on 14 January when the temperature fell to -20 degrees C and the heating did not work in the stationary railcar.
Finally, from 8.10 a.m. until 10.10 a.m. on 16 January, fourteen prisoners, including the applicants, were taken by a Kamaz-43114 prison van to the penal facility. They were put in a 4.3-square-metre compartment for the duration of the journey.
Throughout the entire journey by rail, prisoners were allowed to visit toilet twice a day and were given water for their dry rations three times a day. Compartments were equipped with six full sleeping berths, placed vertically three on each side, which were 2 metres long and 60 cm wide. There was also a shorter “bridge” berth, fixed between the middle berths, which was 1.6 metres long and 50 cm wide. The bridge berth prevented prisoners from standing upright inside the compartment. The prisoners’ bags further reduced the already restricted space. There was no table or light in the compartment and bedding was not provided.
A TsMV 61-4500 prison railcar is designed for transporting up to seventy-five prisoners. It contains five large compartments measuring 2.06 by 1.51 metres (3.10 square metres) with the normative occupancy rate of twelve people, and three small compartments measuring 2.05 by 1.00 metres (2 square metres) with the normative occupancy rate of up to five detainees for journeys longer than four hours.
A TsMV 61-824 railcar is designed for the same number of prisoners. Its large compartments measure 2.02 by 1.64 metres (3.31 square metres) and small compartments 2.02 by 1.00 metres (2 square metres). The normative occupancy rates are identical to the former railcar.
B. Challenge to the normative regulations
In cotemporaneous proceedings, the first applicant and Mr Vasiliev, who is the applicant in case no. 56201/13, challenged the guidance on the technical specifications of the penal facilities and conveyances (Order no. 279 issued by the Ministry of Justice on 4 September 2006 and amended on 17 June 2013). They complained that the normative occupancy rates for standard-issue prison railcars and vans, as established in the guidance, were excessively high and necessarily resulted in the overcrowding. They relied on the Court’s findings in the cases of Khudoyorov v. Russia (no. 6847/02, §§ 117-119, ECHR 2005‑X (extracts)), Guliyev v. Russia (no. 24650/02, §§ 61-69, 19 June 2008), and Idalov v. Russia ([GC], no. 5826/03, §§ 103-108, 22 May 2012).
On 16 November 2015 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation rejected the challenge, finding as follows:
“The plaintiffs’ argument that the measurements of compartments of prison vans and railcars, as established in the guidance, are incompatible with the requirements of international law are unfounded because no other normative act of a higher legal order provides for different cell measurements in those conveyances.
The plaintiffs’ claim that the technical specifications of the guidance are in breach of the case-law of the European Court in the cases of Khudoyorov v. Russia, Guliyev v. Russia, and Idalov v. Russia in the part concerning the conditions of transfer by road and by rail, is erroneous because it does not correspond to the contents [of those judgments].”
On 25 February 2016 the Appeals Panel of the Supreme Court rejected their appeal in a summary fashion.
COMPLAINTS
The applicants complain under Articles 3 and 13 of the Convention about the inhuman and degrading conditions of the transfer and the absence of an effective remedy.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Were the conditions of the applicants’ transfer by road and by rail compatible with the requirements of Article 3 of the Convention?
2. Did the applicants have an effective remedy for their complaint about inhuman and degrading conditions of transfer, as required by Article 13 of the Convention, read in conjunction with Article 3?
3. Having regard to the applicants’ situation in the instant case and to the Court’s findings in previous cases concerning the inhuman and degrading conditions of the applicants’ transfer by road and by rail and the lack of an effective remedy in this respect (see, in particular, Khudoyorov v. Russia, no. 6847/02, §§ 117-119, ECHR 2005‑X (extracts), Guliyev v. Russia, no. 24650/02, §§ 61-69, 19 June 2008, and Idalov v. Russia [GC], no. 5826/03, §§ 103-108, 22 May 2012), as well as to a large number of pending individual cases concerning the same issues, is that situation indicative of a systemic problem and/or a structural deficiency of the Russian law warranting the application of the pilot-judgment procedure under Article 46 of the Convention (see, for general principles, Ananyev and Others v. Russia, nos. 42525/07 and 60800/08, § 180 et seq., 10 January 2012)?
[1]. TsMV (ЦМВ) is a Russian acronym for “all-metal railcar”.
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