Legal summary
December 2025
Văscăuţanu v. Romania (dec.) - 10120/23
Decision 18.11.2025 [Section IV]
Article 35
Article 35-1
Exhaustion of domestic remedies
Effective domestic remedy
Failure to use preventive remedy in respect of detention conditions, rendered effective by case-law developments: inadmissible
Facts – The applicant was placed in detention in 2019 and sentenced to life imprisonment. After serving periods in several prisons, he was transferred to Craiova Prison for a second time in March 2024, where he is currently held.
Between 2023 and 2024, on the basis of Article 56 of Law no. 254/2013 on the execution of sentences and detention measures ordered by the judicial authorities in the context of criminal proceedings (“Law no. 254/2013”), the applicant lodged three complaints with the post-sentencing judge concerning the allegedly wrongful use of handcuffs by prison staff, the fact that he had not been able to have a dental X-ray and an alleged lack of appropriate dental care. The post-sentencing judge allowed the second complaint in April 2024, ordering the prison to facilitate access to the requested X-ray. The two other complaints were rejected in November 2023 and October 2024.
Relying on Article 3 of the Convention, the applicant alleged that the conditions of his detention in Craiova Prison from March 2024 onwards amounted to continuing inhuman and degrading treatment.
Law – Article 35 § 1:
An action for compensation had been found to be an effective remedy since 13 January 2021 for individuals who claimed that they had been detained in unsatisfactory conditions and who were no longer, when their actions were lodged, being held in conditions allegedly breaching the Convention (see Polgar v. Romania, and Vlad v. Romania (dec.)).
Given that the applicant had been held in Craiova Prison since March 2024, in conditions allegedly in breach of Article 3, it had to be ascertained whether he had had access to a preventive remedy capable of preventing the continuation of the violation complained of.
Law no. 254/2013 provided that detained individuals could apply to the post-sentencing judge in whose jurisdiction the prison was located in order to complain of any measure relating to the exercise of their rights under that Law.
The Court had to assess whether that avenue of redress – the effectiveness of which it had called into question in Rezmiveș and Others v. Romania and Polgar (cited above) – now amounted to an effective remedy.
(a) Practice of the domestic courts under Article 56 of Law no. 254/2013 – The 194 relevant examples of case-law adduced by the Government showed that most prisoners who had applied to post-sentencing judges under Article 56 of Law no. 254/2013 in order to complain of unsatisfactory conditions of detention had obtained judicial decisions in their favour, ordering the authorities to put an end to the situations at issue. More specifically, in 190 cases the complainants’ actions had been allowed (in full or in part), and 152 final judicial decisions resulting from those proceedings had been enforced by the national authorities. That practice demonstrated that, in most cases, the use of the remedy in question by the prisoners had been capable of preventing the continuation of the alleged violations of Article 3.
Such redress was sought from a judge offering guarantees of independence and impartiality. That judge’s decisions – which were adopted within 15 days of the complaint being lodged, thereby satisfying the criterion of speediness of proceedings – were taken in compliance with the adversarial principle and were binding for the prisons concerned.
The examples presented covered a large majority of establishments in the national prison system (21 out of 27 in total) and a case-law development could be seen for 2023. At the quantitative level, there had been three times more relevant examples of case-law that year than in the previous year. At the qualitative level, it had to be noted that the domestic courts dealing with such matters had generally carried out an examination in compliance with the Convention requirements, putting an end to the situations alleged by the complainants to be in breach of Article 3. To take one example, in a judgment of 6 April 2023, the Iaşi Prison post-sentencing judge had ordered the prison to bring the complainant’s cell into line with prisoner-accommodation standards. Following that judgment – which had been upheld by the Court of First Instance – the complainant had no longer been detained in the cell in question. In another case, in May 2023 the Piteşti Court of First Instance had reversed the post-sentencing judge’s ruling and ordered the prison concerned to comply with domestic and international prisoner-accommodation standards, thereby putting an end to the overcrowding complained of.
Other domestic decisions that had followed the judgment of 6 April 2023 also showed that the preventive remedy had enabled the complainants (including those detained, like the applicant, in Craiova Prison) to secure an end to the situations alleged to be in breach of Article 3.
(b) General improvement in conditions of detention – As part of the action plan initiated in 2020 in response to the adoption of the Rezmiveș and Others pilot judgment (cited above), the respondent State had put in place a series of measures aimed at addressing the structural problem of unsatisfactory conditions of detention in Romanian prisons. Between 2020 and 2024 the capacity of detention facilities had been increased, a portion of existing cells had been modernised and renovated and, in order to distribute the prison population more evenly, prisoner transfers had taken place between prisons. Two new prisons were also currently under construction. When examining the execution of the aforementioned pilot judgment, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe had welcomed the national authorities’ progress, while encouraging them to continue their efforts to implement the action plan in those areas, in particular through measures to reduce the prison population.
Council of Europe Annual Penal Statistics (SPACE) confirmed that the prison density in Romania had mainly fallen in the previous 11 years (from 165.4% in 2013 to 120.09% in 2022 and 116% in 2024), even though overcrowding persisted.
In view of (i) that primarily downward trend, which was expected to continue, (ii) the material conditions in Romanian prisons and (iii) the likelihood that the situation would remain manageable, in particular owing to renovation and construction work, the decisions of the post-sentencing judges and those of the courts did not appear hard or impossible to comply with in cases in which they sought to overcome overcrowding or to improve the existing material conditions.
Having regard to the nature of the preventive remedy, the manner in which the domestic courts were applying it and the improvement in the material conditions of detention in Romanian prisons, the remedy introduced by Article 56 of Law no. 254/2013 had, since 6 April 2023, proved to be an accessible remedy capable of offering reasonable prospects of success to prisoners complaining of unsatisfactory conditions.
(c) Effectiveness of the preventive remedy in the applicant’s case – The applicant had, on three occasions, made use of the remedy introduced by Law no. 254/2013, to complain of ill-treatment and to obtain appropriate medical care during his detention in Craiova Prison, but never to complain of the detention conditions in that prison.
However, the remedy introduced by Law no. 254/2013 could, from 6 April 2023 onwards, be regarded as an effective one for the purpose of complaining of unsatisfactory conditions in Romanian prisons.
The applicant therefore should have availed himself of the preventive remedy in question in order to secure an immediate improvement in his detention conditions.
The Court reserved the right to examine whether subsequent domestic case-law would be consistent with its own case-law and whether the remedies would be effective, both in theory and in practice, to ensure improvement in the overcrowding and material conditions in Romanian prisons.
Conclusion: inadmissible (failure to exhaust domestic remedies).
(See Rezmiveș and Others v. Romania, 61467/12 et al., 25 April 2017, Legal summary; Polgar v. Romania, 39412/19, 20 July 2021, Legal summary; Vlad v. Romania (dec.), 122/17, 15 November 2022, Legal summary)
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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