Information Note on the Court’s case-law 200
October 2016
T.P. and A.T. v. Hungary - 37871/14 and 73986/14
Judgment 4.10.2016 [Section IV]
Article 3
Degrading punishment
Inhuman punishment
Life imprisonment with automatic review after 40 years: violation
Facts – Following the Court’s judgment in László Magyar v. Hungary in May 2014 finding a violation of Article 3 of the Convention on the grounds that the presidential clemency procedure for life prisoners did not meet the requirement set out in Vinter and Others v. the United Kingdom [GC] that life sentences should be reducible, Hungary introduced amending legislation* providing, as an additional remedy, for the automatic review of whole life sentences after 40 years.
Both applicants in the instant case were sentenced to terms of life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. In the Convention proceedings, they complained that their whole life sentences remained de facto irreducible under the new clemency procedure, in breach of Article 3.
Law – Article 3: The fact that the applicants could hope to have their progress towards release reviewed only after serving 40 years of their life sentences was of itself sufficient for the Court to conclude that the new legislation did not offer de facto reducibility of the applicants’ whole life sentences. That period was significantly longer than the maximum recommended period of 25 years before review established, on the basis of a consensus in comparative and international law, by the Grand Chamber in Vinter and Others. (The Court also noted that, unlike the position in Bodein v. France, there was no indication in the present case that any period of pre-trial detention would be taken into account in calculating the time-limit for review.)
The Court also had a number of concerns relating to the remainder of the procedure provided by the new legislation. Firstly, although the general criteria to be taken into account by the Clemency Board in deciding whether or not to recommend a life prisoner for pardon were now clearly set out in a provision which satisfied the requirement for the assessment to be based on objective, pre-established criteria, it did not appear that the criteria equally applied to the President of the Republic, who had the last say as to a possible pardon in each individual case. In other words, the new legislation did not oblige the President to assess whether continued imprisonment was justified on legitimate penological grounds. Furthermore, the new legislation failed to set a time-frame for the President to decide the clemency application or to require reasons to be given for the decision, even if it deviated from the recommendation of the Clemency Board.
Lastly, although life prisoners could seek presidential clemency in ordinary pardon proceedings even before the expiry of the 40 year-period required for the mandatory pardon procedure, the Court had already found in László Magyar that that avenue did not provide de facto or de iure reducibility of a life sentence.
In sum, in view of the lengthy period the applicants were required to wait before the commencement of the mandatory clemency procedure and the lack of sufficient procedural safeguards in the second part of that procedure, the Court was not persuaded that the applicants’ life sentences could be regarded as reducible for the purposes of Article 3.
Conclusion: violation (six votes to one).
Article 41: finding of a violation constituted sufficient just satisfaction in respect of any non-pecuniary damage; claim in respect of pecuniary damage dismissed.
(See László Magyar v. Hungary, 73593/10, 20 May 2014, Information Note 174; Vinter and Others v. the United Kingdom [GC], 66069/09, 130/10 and 3896/10, 9 July 2013, Information Note 165; and Bodein v. France, 40014/10, 13 November 2014, Information Note 179; see also the Factsheet on Life imprisonment)
* Act no. LXXII of 2014 amending Act no. CCXL of 2013 on the Execution of Punishments, Measures, Certain Coercive Measures and Confinement for Infractions.
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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