Communicated on 25 March 2015
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 37871/14
T.P. against Hungary
lodged on 28 October 2014
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr T. P., is a Hungarian national, who was born in 1981 and is currently detained in Sátoraljaújhely. The President of the Section to which the case was allocated granted the applicant’s request for his identity not to be disclosed to the public (Rule 47 § 4).
The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
On 22 November 2006 the Nógrád County Regional Court convicted the applicant of murder committed with special cruelty and abuse of firearms. It found that he had abducted and repeatedly stabbed a young girl and then drowned her in a cesspit full of water and excrement, using an iron bar and causing many injuries while persistently and violently pushing the victim back into the waste water. The Regional Court relied inter alia on forensic evidence, the testimonies of numerous witnesses, the opinions of expert pathologists, psychiatrists and firearm specialists, mobile phone call lists and physical evidence. The applicant was sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole (B.225/2005/45.).
On 28 June 2007 the Budapest Court of Appeal upheld the judgment, adding that the murder had been committed for ‘villainous’ reasons, namely, the applicant was considered to have killed the victim in a particularly horrible manner, so as to prevent her from reporting the initial abduction and stabbing and thereby to cover up a previous crime (2.Bf.48/2007/12.).
On 14 February 2008 the Supreme Court dismissed the applicant’s petition for review (Bfv.II.770/2007/6.).
Currently, he is currently serving his sentence in Sátoraljaújhely Prison.
On 5 November 2013 the President of the Republic dismissed the applicant’s request for pardon.
With a view to complying with the judgment adopted in the case of László Magyar v. Hungary (no. 73593/10, 20 May 2014), the Hungarian legislator introduced, on 1 January 2015, a mechanism for the mandatory review, after 40 years of imprisonment, of whole life sentences.
COMPLAINT
The applicant complains under Article 3 that the fact that he can be eligible for parole only after 40 years of imprisonment amounts to inhuman and degrading treatment.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Has the applicant been deprived of any real prospect of release and thus potentially subjected to inhuman punishment, in breach of Article 3 of the Convention, in view of the fact that he will not be eligible for release on parole before 40 years (cf. Vinter and Others v. the United Kingdom [GC], nos. 66069/09, 130/10 and 3896/10, §§ 120-121, ECHR 2013 (extracts))?
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