CEDH · CASELAW;JUDGMENTS;CHAMBER;ENG — 9 avril 2019

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RUSSIA   (Applications nos. 18255/10 and 5 others – see appended list)             JUDGMENT           STRASBOURG   9 April 2019     FINAL   09/07/2019   This judgment has become final under Article 44 § 2 of the Convention. It may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Tomov and Others v. Russia, The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting as a Chamber composed of:   Vincent A. De Gaetano, President,   Helen Keller,   Dmitry Dedov,   Alena Poláčková,   Georgios A. Serghides,   Jolien Schukking,   María Elósegui, judges, and Stephen Phillips, Section Registrar, Having deliberated in private on 19 March 2019, Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date: PROCEDURE 1.     The case originated in six applications (nos.   18255/10, 63058/10, 10270/11, 73227/11, 56201/13 and 41234/16) against the Russian Federation lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by seven Russian nationals whose names are given below (“the applicants”). 2.     Mr E. Mezak, a human-rights defender from Syktyvkar, was granted leave to represent all of the applicants, except Mr Rakov, before the Court (Rule   36 of the Rules of Court). Mr Rakov was represented by Mr   A.   Shevchenko, a lawyer practising in Vladivostok. The Russian Government (“the Government”) were represented initially by Mr   G.   Matyushkin, Representative of the Russian Federation to the European Court of Human Rights, and later by his successor in that position, Mr   M.   Galperin. 3.     The applicants alleged, in particular, that they had been transferred between penal facilities in inhuman and degrading conditions and that they had not had an effective domestic remedy for that grievance. Mr Rakov also complained that the civil proceedings had been conducted in his absence. 4.     Between 10 May 2013 and 3 April 2017 the above-mentioned complaints were communicated to the Government, who were also requested to submit copies of certain regulations. The remainder of applications nos.   63058/10 and 73227/11 was declared inadmissible. It was decided that the proceedings in all cases would be conducted simultaneously (Rule 42 §   2   of the Rules of Court). 5 .     On 2 May 2014 the Government presented the Court with a unilateral declaration, acknowledging a violation of Article 3 of the Convention in case no. 18255/10. On 18 November 2014 the Court examined the declaration and decided not to accept it. 6 .     In application no. 41234/16, the Court asked for the parties’ views on the existence of a systemic problem or a structural deficiency of the Russian law resulting in important number of complaints such as the applicants’. The parties submitted their comments. Written submissions on that issue were also received from the Human Rights Litigation Foundation, a non ‑ governmental organisation based in Brussels, Belgium, which the President of the Section had granted leave to intervene (Article 36 §   2 of the Convention). THE FACTS I.     THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE A.     General information on prison conveyances in Russia 7 .     The Russian Federal Prison Service (“the FSIN”) transports prisoners across its network of nearly 300 remand prisons and equivalent facilities, eight prisons for convicted offenders, and more than 800 correctional facilities and penal settlements ( колония-поселение ). Together with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, it operates a large fleet of railway carriages and prison vans manned by officers from the convoy department. 8.     The general conditions of transport, as transpires from the material submitted by the parties, may be described as follows. 1.     Railway carriages 9 .     Special railway carriages for transporting prisoners have a solid metal body mounted on the chassis of a regular passenger carriage. There are four basic models. All have five large compartments and, in addition, four (models nos. 512 and 519) or three (models nos. 824 and 4500) small compartments. The passenger capacity is set out in the “Guidance for equipping penal facilities with security and surveillance systems” (Order no.   279 issued by the Ministry of Justice on 4 September 2006, later replaced by Order no. 94 of 17 June 2013, Annex, point 6.2) and in the Conveyance Instruction (see paragraph 67 below). The measurements based on the technical specifications were given in the Supreme Court’s decisions (see paragraph 69 below). 10 .     A large compartment is the same size as a standard Russian passenger compartment designed for four people. It is two metres deep and one and a half metres wide. The prison version of the compartment is fitted with six and a half sleeping places. Six bunks, 60 centimetres wide by 2   metres long, are placed three on each side. A shorter seventh bunk, 50   centimetres wide and 1.6 metres long, bridges the gap between the two middle bunks. The “bridge” bunk makes it impossible to stand upright in the compartment. According to the Conveyance Instruction, a large compartment is suitable for transporting up to twelve people on long ‑ distance journeys or up to sixteen people for short distances. Counsel for the FSIN explained in the proceedings before the Supreme Court (see paragraph 69 below) the manner in which sixteen people were accommodated in a large compartment: five prisoners seated on each of the two lower bunks, one prisoner lying on each of the two upper bunks, and four people seated on the middle bunks joined together with the bridge bunk. In 2012, the Supreme Court held that the occupancy limits established in the Conveyance Instruction for long-distance journeys were incompatible with international law (see paragraph 69 below). 11 .     Small compartments are two metres deep and one metre wide. They are fitted with three bunks on one side. It is permissible to use them for accommodating up to five people on a long journey or six people on a short journey. 12.     Compartments have no windows or inside lighting. Any light comes through a sliding barred door leading to the corridor where guards are stationed. 13.     Neither mattresses nor bedding is provided. Apart from bunk beds, compartments have no other fixtures or storage space for prisoners’ baggage. 14.     A flush toilet is located at the end of the carriage. It is prohibited to use it when the train is stationary or moving within the perimeter of the sanitary protection zone surrounding a railway station. 2.     Prison vans 15.     Prison vans are used to transport prisoners to and from train stations and also between remand prisons, courts and police wards. They have a van chassis, on which a solid metal body is mounted. The most common brands are GAZ-3307 and 3309 vans with many variants featuring a different number of single- and multi-prisoner cells. Their measurements are set out in vehicle type approval certificates, which were examined in the domestic proceedings (see paragraph 69 below), appended to the Government’s submissions in application no. 63058/10, and also listed in point 6.2 of the appendix to the above-mentioned Order no. 94 of 17   June 2013. 16.     The prisoner area of the van has security hatches in the roof but no windows. Prisoners and guards board the van through a back or side door. A central aisle opens onto a guards’ area with cushioned seats for convoy officers and a heating unit. The prisoner area is 1.55 to 1.70 metres high. 17 .     A single-prisoner cubicle, commonly referred to by its Russian vernacular name “ stakan ” (“a drinking glass”), is a solid metal isolation box that is 65   centimetres deep and 50   centimetres wide with one seat inside. Single-prisoner cubicles are used to transport prisoners who belong to a “special category”, such as female offenders or former police officers, and as such must be isolated from others (see point 168 of the Conveyance Instruction in paragraph 66 below). These cubicles have a solid metal body and doors with a peephole and small air holes. 18.     Multi-prisoner cells are 1.15 to 1.20 metres deep. They are fitted with two benches facing each other. As per Order no. 94, the occupancy rate in multi-prisoner cells correlates to the length of the bench at a ratio of 45   centimetres per person. Nine or ten-person cells in Gaz and Zil vans are 2.25 to 2.35 metres long; eighteen-person cells in Ural and Kamaz vans are 3.70 metres long. Those cells may have either solid or barred doors. B.     Facts of the individual cases 1.     The first case of Mr Tomov (application no. 18255/10, lodged on 15   March 2010) 19 .     Mr Aleksey Gennadyevich Tomov was born in 1966 and lives in the village of Vylgort in the Komi Republic. 20.     From 2004 to 2009 Mr Tomov served a custodial sentence in high ‑ security correctional facility IK-22 in Vorkuta. In August 2009, the Vorkuta Town Court amended his sentence, changing the type of facility to a penal settlement. Accordingly, the authorities decided to transfer him to the KP-52 settlement located in the village of Vetyu in the Knyazhpogostskiy district of the Komi Republic. The nearest city was Yemva, which is located some 900 kilometres away from Vorkuta. 21.     The transfer to Yemva began by prison van on 19 September 2009. Mr Tomov and three other detainees were placed in a multi-prisoner cell of a Gaz-3307 van. On its way to the railway station, the van called at the Vorkuta remand prison, where more prisoners were placed on board, bringing the total number of people to ten. The journey to the station took two and a half hours. 22.     The transfer continued by train, along the railway line connecting Vorkuta with Yemva via Pechora and Usinsk. 23 .     On the journey between Vorkuta and Usinsk Mr Tomov shared a large compartment with nine people. That part of the transfer began at 5   p.m. on 19 September and ended at 11.30 a.m. the following day. It lasted nineteen hours with a four-hour stop at Pechora. 24 .     After a four-hour stop at Usinsk and until their arrival at the destination in Yemva, Mr Tomov shared a small compartment with three people during the second leg of the journey, which lasted from 4.10 p.m. on 20 September until 12.45 p.m. on 21 September, for a total of twenty-one hours with another six-hour stop at Pechora. 25.     Prisoners were allowed to visit the toilet two or three times a day. Using the toilet during stops was prohibited. 2.     The case of Ms Punegova (application no. 63058/10, lodged on 24   August 2011) 26.     Ms Yuliya Vadimovna Punegova was born in 1985 and lives in Syktyvkar. 27 .     On 25 and 27 January and 1 and 18 February 2010, in the framework of a pre-trial investigation, she was taken by prison van to the town court, a forensic facility, a remand centre and a hospital. The trips in January lasted three minutes each way, those in February thirty minutes. 28 .     According to Ms Punegova, in March, May, July and September 2010 she was also taken to the town court where hearings concerning the matter of her pre-trial detention were held. 29.     After the opening of the trial before the Supreme Court of the Komi Republic, she was shuttled between the remand prison and the trial court on ten or twelve occasions between 15 December 2010 and 24 February 2011. The distance was sixteen kilometres and the travel time thirty-five minutes. 30.     Each time, Ms Punegova was placed in a single-prisoner cubicle inside Gaz and Kavz vans. In the winter months she suffered greatly from the cold because the heating unit was located in the central aisle, while the solid metal door of her cell prevented warm air from circulating. The outside temperature varied between minus 11 and minus 28 degrees Celsius. 3.     The case of Ms Kostromina (application no. 10270/11, lodged on 14   January 2011) 31.     Ms Natalya Borisovna Kostromina was born in 1978 and lives in Syktyvkar. She states that she suffers from obesity caused by diabetes. 32.     In June 2010 investigators in Komi asked the prison service to arrange for her transfer from the correctional facility in Kineshma where she was serving her sentence to a remand prison in Syktyvkar. 33.     The transfer began on 25 June 2010 and ended on 18 July 2010. Ms   Kostromina transited through remand prisons in Ivanovo, Yaroslavl and Sosnogorsk. She was taken in a prison van from remand centres to railway stations on seven occasions, with each trip lasting one to two hours. 34 .     Each time Ms Kostromina was placed in a single-prisoner cubicle in a Gaz prison van, together with another detainee, N., who was also in transit from Kineshma to Syktyvkar. Ms Kostromina’s suffering was aggravated on account of her obesity and unusually hot summer temperatures. 35 .     In his letter of 6 June 2011 to a member of the public monitoring commission, the deputy head of the Yaroslavl prison service explained that Ms Kostromina and Ms N. had been placed together in the single-prisoner cubicle in order to isolate them from male offenders. 4.     The case of Mr Rakov (application no. 73227/11, lodged on 11   October 2011) 36.     Mr Yevgeniy Nikolayevich Rakov was born in 1969 in Vladivostok. 37.     Pursuant to an order issued by the Primorskiy Regional Court, Mr   Rakov was to be transferred from the facility where he was serving his sentence to a remand prison in Vladivostok, located 200 kilometres away. 38.     At about 4 p.m. on 21 February 2011 Mr Rakov, together with twelve other prisoners, was taken to the Nakhodka railway station and placed in a large compartment of a railway carriage. Prisoners were not allowed to use the toilet until approximately 8 p.m. The wait was particularly difficult for Mr   Rakov, who suffered from chronic prostatitis. Upon arriving at Ussuriysk station, the railway carriage was left overnight on a siding with the prisoners locked inside the compartment without access to water or a toilet. They had to urinate into plastic bags or bottles and stash them under the lower bunk. The train arrived at Vladivostok station at about noon the following day, but the prisoners had to wait until 7.30 p.m. until vans were ready to take them to the remand prison. No water or toilet access was authorised during the wait.     The transfer ended at 9 p.m. on 22 February 2011. 39.     Mr Rakov complained about the conditions of his transfer to various authorities and also to a court of general jurisdiction, seeking compensation for non-pecuniary damage. 40 .     On 12 April 2011 the Primorskiy regional prosecutor’s office replied that they had questioned the guards who had been on duty on 21 and 22   February and established that the number of prisoners in the compartment had not exceeded the norm. Hot water had been distributed between 8.10 p.m. and 8.20 p.m. on 21 February 2011. On the following day no hot water had been distributed because the prisoners had finished their dry rations the previous night. Toilet visits had been authorised from 9.10 p.m. to 10.40 p.m. on 21 February and from 10.10 a.m. to 11.00 a.m. on 22 February. The prosecutor concluded that the guards had not breached any regulations. 41 .     On 22 April 2011 the FSIN replied to Mr Rakov that, following verification and having interviewed twenty-three prisoners, it had been established that he had been placed together with nine prisoners in a large compartment. The nine-hour wait at Ussuriysk had been accounted for by the schedule of passenger trains. The relevant sanitary regulations forbade the use of flush toilets of the type installed in prisoner carriages while the train was stationary or was passing through large stations. The FSIN determined that the guards had acted in compliance with the regulations and that the conditions of Mr Rakov’s transportation had not amounted to torture or inhuman treatment. 42 .     In his statement of claim to the Sovetskiy District Court in Vladivostok, Mr Rakov designated Mr Shevchenko as his representative. The court informed him that the personal attendance of incarcerated litigants was not provided for by law and invited him to issue a power of attorney for Mr Shevchenko, which Mr Rakov did. On 30 May 2011 the District Court held a hearing, but Mr Shevchenko did not attend. Having heard oral submissions from representatives of the FSIN and the federal treasury, the court rejected Mr Rakov’s claim for compensation. The judgment restated the findings of the above-mentioned inquiry by the FSIN and endorsed its conclusion to the effect that there had been no breach of Mr   Rakov’s rights. 43 .     Mr Rakov lodged an appeal. He listed Mr Shevchenko as his representative and also sought leave to appear in person. On 12 July 2011 the Primorskiy Regional Court rejected the appeal in a summary decision, without hearing Mr Rakov or his representative. 5.     The case of Mr Vasilyev (application no. 56201/13, lodged on 7   May 2013) 44.     Mr Dmitriy Lvovich Vasilyev was born in 1958 and lives in Pechora. From 2007 to 2013 he served a custodial sentence in the IK ‑ 54   correctional facility in the Sverdlovsk Region. 45.     At about 11 p.m. on 10 November 2012 Mr Vasilyev and seven other detainees were loaded into a multi-prisoner cell of a Gaz van. The detainees were in the van for one hour, first in transit to the railway station and later while they waited for the train to arrive. 46 .     At about midnight Mr Vasilyev was transferred to a railway carriage, coupled to a passenger train bound for Yekaterinburg. During the eight-hour journey to Yekaterinburg, a two-hour wait in a siding at Yekaterinburg station and a two-hour wait for a police escort, Mr   Vasilyev was kept together with between nine and thirteen other people in a large compartment. 47.     In Yekaterinburg, Mr Vasilyev and thirteen other prisoners were taken to the IZ-66/1 remand prison in a multi-prisoner cell of a Kamaz van. The journey ended at 1 p.m. on 11 November 2012 having lasted a total of fourteen hours. 48 .     The return journey began at 5 p.m. on 24 November 2012, when Mr   Vasilyev and thirteen other prisoners were taken to the railway station in a Kamaz prison van. They were held in a multi-prisoner cell during the two ‑ hour trip. Until 4 a.m. the following day, Mr Vasilyev was transported in a large compartment of a prisoner carriage, with between nine and eleven other people. 49.     At the destination, Mr Vasilyev and seven other prisoners were again loaded into a multi-prisoner cell of a Gaz van. They alighted one hour later at the penal facility. The total duration of the journey was in excess of twelve hours. 6.     The second case of Mr Tomov and the cases of Mr Roshka and Mr   Barinov (application no. 41234/16, lodged on 2 July 2016) 50.     Mr Tomov (for his personal details see paragraph 19 above), Mr   Nikolay Konstantinovich Roshka, born in 1965 in Moldova, and Mr   Nikita Valeryevich Barinov, born in 1990 in Syktyvkar, were in transit between the IZ-11/1 remand prison in Syktyvkar and the IK ‑ 23   high ‑ security penal facility in the Murmansk Region. It was a journey of approximately 2,200 kilometres. 51 .     From 3.30 p.m. to 5 p.m. on 18 December 2015 the three applicants and five other people were placed in a multi-prisoner cell of a Kamaz prison van and taken to Syktyvkar railway station. The same eight prisoners travelled in a large compartment of a prisoner carriage to Sosnogorsk via Ukhta, arriving at 7.30 p.m. the following day. 52 .     After a three-night stay at the Sosnogorsk remand prison, in the morning of 22 December they were taken back to Ukhta railway station by prison van in which fourteen people shared a multi-prisoner cell. From 10   a.m. until 7.30 a.m. the following day, ten prisoners, including the applicants, travelled in a large compartment of a railway carriage from Ukhta to Vologda. That journey was followed by a transfer to the Vologda remand prison by van with nine people sharing a multi-prisoner cell. The transfer took one hour. 53.     The three applicants then spent almost three weeks in the Vologda remand prison. 54.     On 13 January 2016 the transfer resumed. From 3.40 p.m. to 5.40   p.m. fifteen prisoners, including the applicants, were placed in a multi ‑ prisoner cell of a Kamaz van and taken to Vologda station. 55 .     From 5.40 p.m. on 13 January until 8.10 a.m. on 16 January a total of twelve people were transferred from Vologda to Olenegorsk in the Murmansk Region. They were held in a large compartment of a prisoner railway carriage. During a fifteen-hour stop in St   Petersburg on 14   January, the temperature fell to minus 20 degrees Celsius, but the heating did not function because the prisoner carriage was stationary. The prisoners were allowed two toilet visits per day and given three pots of hot water per day. 56.     Lastly, from 8.10 a.m. until 10.10 a.m. on 16 January, fourteen prisoners, including the applicants, were transferred to the penal facility in a multi-prisoner cell of a Kamaz van. C.     Challenges by the applicants to the normative framework 1.     Challenge by Mr Rakov (case no. GKPI11-1143) 57.     Mr Rakov challenged point 167 of the Conveyance Instruction (see paragraph 67 below), claiming that the excessively high normative capacity of railway carriages led to overcrowding and deprived prisoners of a proper night’s rest. 58 .     On 13 October 2011 the Supreme Court of Russia rejected the challenge, finding that the instruction had been issued by the competent authority and did not contradict any hierarchically superior regulations. The normative capacity conformed to the technical specifications of railway carriages and to health and safety regulations. There was no indication that such conditions could be constitutive of torture or inhuman treatment which, in the Supreme Court’s view, must involve deliberate infliction of pain or suffering. 59 .     Mr Rakov appealed, complaining in particular that the impugned document had not been published and had been classified “for service use only”. 60.     On 27 December 2011 the Appeals Panel of the Supreme Court rejected the appeal in a summary fashion. 2.     Challenge by Mr Tomov and Mr Vasilyev (case no. AKPI15-1121) 61.     Relying on the Court’s case-law, Mr Tomov and Mr Vasilyev challenged Order no. 279 (see paragraph 9 above), complaining that the normative occupancy rates laid down in the Order were excessively high and necessarily led to overcrowding. 62 .     On 16 November 2015 the Supreme Court rejected the challenge, finding as follows: “The plaintiffs’ argument that the measurements of cells in prisoner vans and railway carriages, 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].” 63.     On 25 February 2016 the Appeals Panel of the Supreme Court rejected their appeal in a summary fashion. II.     RELEVANT DOMESTIC LAW AND PRACTICE A.     Conveyance Instruction 64 .     The standards for transporting prisoners are set out in a document approved jointly by the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of the Interior on 24 May 2006 (no. 199dsp/369dsp, as amended by joint order no.   236dsp/900dsp of 22 October 2008) and classified for service use only. A copy of the instruction on the performance of duties by special convoy departments of the prison service (the “Conveyance Instruction”) was submitted by the applicants’ representative (see paragraph 87 below) and verified against quotes from that document in domestic judicial decisions. 65.     Section II describes the procedure for establishing regular transit routes. It provides that prisoner railway carriages are to be coupled to passenger trains or to mail-and-freight trains (point 14). Railways are identified as the preferred mode of transport; regular motorway routes may be established only if no rail links are available (point   17). Regular routes must be established with a view to minimising the number of transfers and maximising the number of prisoners who can be transported together. Should that number fall below 40% of capacity over a three-month period, the regional prison department must suggest a re-arrangement of the established routes (point 19). 66 .     Section XVII sets out the conditions of detention of untried prisoners and convicted offenders during transportation. Guards are required to ensure the separation of sixteen categories of detainees: women must be kept separate from men, juveniles from adults, untried prisoners from convicted offenders; foreigners, life prisoners, sick prisoners and former police officers from any other group, and so on (points 164 and 166). It is not permissible to load a railway carriage with more than six categories of detainees or use more than 70% of its carrying capacity. A prison van can accommodate as many categories as it has cells (point 168). 67 .     The normative carrying capacity of a railway carriage is set at twelve people in a large compartment or five people in a small compartment. If the transfer time is below four hours, it is permissible to place up to sixteen people in a large compartment or up to six in a small compartment. A prison van with a carrying capacity of up to two tons may carry up to thirteen prisoners, a van with a capacity of up to three tons may carry up to twenty ‑ one prisoners, and a van with a capacity of up to four tons may carry up to thirty-six prisoners (point 167). Prisoners may carry baggage weighing up to fifty kilogrammes (point 174). 68.     Dry rations are provided by the facility at the departure point for the entire duration of the transfer. In the event of a delay, additional dry rations are supplied by the nearest remand prison or penal colony. The procedure for distributing hot water must be established by the director of the regional prison department (point 175). 69 .     On 24 January 2012 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation granted in part a legal challenge brought by three detainees represented by Mr Mezak (case no. GKPI11-1774, judgment upheld on appeal on 17 April 2012). They alleged that the wording of the second and third paragraphs of point 167 of the Conveyance Instruction created conditions for severe overcrowding during transportation. As regards transfers by rail, the Supreme Court held: “Accommodating six prisoners in a small compartment ... does not exceed the carrying capacity and is compatible with international and federal law. Having regard to the size of the bunks and the width of the bridge bunk (not more than forty-seven centimetres), the court considers that placing sixteen prisoners in a large compartment that has five sleeping and eight sitting places must be excessively uncomfortable for them and is incompatible with the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. Accordingly, paragraph 2 of point 167 of the Instruction must be declared invalid in the relevant part.” As regards transfers by prison van, the Supreme Court found: “... [T]he normative seating capacity, as established in paragraph 3 of point 167 of the Conveyance Instruction, is compatible with the technical specifications of [prison vans]. The regulation is not in breach of Article 3 of the European Convention ... [because] the transfer of prisoners by van in compliance with the normative seating capacity set out in paragraph 3 of point 167 of the Instruction is not, in itself, constitutive of torture, cruel or inhuman treatment.” 70.     In 2018, the normative carrying capacity of a railway carriage was reduced to ten people in a large compartment and four in a small compartment (see paragraph 76 below). B.     Case-law of Russian courts 71 .     In 2011, the applicant Mr Vasilyev and another person complained to the Syktyvkar Town Court that the conditions in which they had been transported earlier that year had been in breach of Article 3 of the Convention. On 24 February 2012 the Town Court rejected their claim at first instance, finding that the placement of up to twelve people in a large compartment of a railway carriage had been compatible with its normative occupancy rate and the Conveyance Instruction. On 13 August 2012 the Supreme Court of the Komi Republic quashed that decision, finding as follows: “The judicial panel cannot agree with the conclusion of the first-instance court because the compatibility of the conditions of transport with normative requirements cannot in itself indicate that the conditions of transport were also compliant with Article 3 of the Convention ... The conditions of transport in the present case may be assimilated to those in the case of Khudoyorov [ v. Russia ] ... In these circumstances, the judicial panel considers that the appeal arguments as to the cramped conditions of transport are meritorious.” 72 .     On 3 October 2012 the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Komi Republic granted a cassation appeal lodged by the FSIN and reinstated the Town Court’s decision, attaching decisive weight to formal compliance with the regulations and the Supreme Court’s case-law upholding the normative framework (see paragraph 69 above). 73 .     In February 2013, the applicant Mr Vasilyev lodged two further claims, seeking a declaration that the conditions of his transport in November 2012 had been incompatible with Article 3 of the Convention. His claims were rejected by the Pechora Town Court on 23 and 24   September 2013, and on appeal by the Supreme Court of the Komi Republic. The courts referred to the Supreme Court’s case-law (see paragraphs 58 and 69 above) to the effect that the conditions of transport had not breached the normative requirements. 74 .     Similar claims lodged by Mr Al., Mr Ya. and Mr An. were rejected by the Komi courts on the same grounds (judgments of the Supreme Court of the Komi Republic of 23 January 2012, 26 November 2012 and 31   October 2013, respectively). In the case of Mr Ya. (case no.   33 ‑ 5332/2012), the appellate court added: “The claimant’s transportation in the prison van and railway carriage [carried out] in compliance with the requirements of the [Conveyance] Instruction and in the absence of evidence of actual bodily injury is not, in itself, indicative of degrading or inhuman treatment. If anything, the conditions of transport are the same for all convicted offenders and are acceptable in the prevailing social and economic situation in the country ... Social isolation of convicted offenders implies restrictions on [their] rights and freedoms and involves an element of suffering which is a condition precedent for attaining the objectives of criminal punishment: the restoration of social justice and the rehabilitation of the offender.” C.     High Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman) 75 .     Section 2.3 on “Rights of detainees” in the 2015 report by Russia’s High Commissioner for Human Rights noted a lack of progress in the matter of public control over conditions of transport: “Research into the efficiency of operations of the Public Monitoring Commissions revealed that certain locations are inaccessible to public control or human rights monitoring: vehicles and specials cars for transporting convicted offenders and remand prisoners ... Regrettably, the Ministry of Justice did not heed the High Commissioner’s proposals for the organisation of public monitoring of observance of the rights of persons being escorted to courts, investigative authorities or to penal facilities. Moreover, no consideration has been given to proposals to amend legal regulations issued by the Prosecutor General’s Office regarding public monitoring of holding cells in the courts and of prisoner transport.” D.     Ministry of Justice’s annual monitoring report 76 .     The 2017 report on the monitoring of legal developments in the Russian Federation ( Доклад о результатах мониторинга правоприменения в Российской Федерации ) described measures taken for the execution of the Court’s judgments concerning conditions of transport (“the Guliyev group of cases”, point 3 of appendix 5): - a joint order of the Ministry of Justice and Ministry of the Interior (no.   26dsp/85dsp) of 9 February 2018 had amended the Conveyance Instruction, reducing the normative carrying capacity of large compartments to ten people, and of small compartments to four people; - the conditions of transport of pregnant women and women with infants had been improved; - the Ministry of the Interior had updated the technical specifications of prison vans and was prepared to work towards a further increase of personal space per detainee and the introduction of double-decker prisoner railway carriages; - further improvements to transportation routes and to interaction between State authorities in charge of transferring detainees, as well as a gradual replacement of the rolling stock, were envisaged in accordance with the “Conceptual framework for the development of penal facilities in the period up to 2020” (Government Resolution no. 1772-r of 14   October 2010); - a review of the recommendations contained in a CPT factsheet published in 2018 was planned. III.     RELEVANT COUNCIL OF EUROPE MATERIALS A.     Committee of Ministers 77 .     The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe is supervising the execution of judgments in the case of Guliyev v. Russia (no.   24650/02, 19 June 2008) and forty-five repetitive cases, in which the Court found a violation of Article 3 of the Convention on account of the inhuman and degrading conditions in which the applicants had been transported. 78 .     Communication from the Russian Federation concerning the case of Guliyev v. Russia (DH-DD(2011)843) which the Russian Government submitted for consideration at the Committee of Ministers’ 1128th meeting on 29 November 2011, indicated that copies of the translated judgment had been made available to officers of the Ministry of the Interior and the FSIN who had been directed to ensure that the conditions of transport be compliant with international and domestic law and that measures be taken in respect of well-founded complaints about conditions of transport. Further copies of the Court’s judgment had been provided to regional supervising prosecutors and presidents of regional courts. The Russian authorities concluded that there was no need to prepare a specific action plan. B.     Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) 79 .     In June 2018, the CPT issued a factsheet presenting its main standards in respect of the transport of detainees ( CPT/Inf(2018)24 ; footnotes with references to CPT country visit reports have been omitted): 1. Material conditions “When vehicles are equipped with secure compartments, individual cubicles measuring less than 0.6 m² should not be used for transporting a person, no matter how short the duration. Individual cubicles measuring some 0.6 m² can be considered as acceptable for short journeys/distances; however, cubicles used for longer journeys/distances should be much larger. Compartments or cubicles intended to transport more than one detainee for short journeys/distances should offer no less than 0.4 m² of space per person, and preferably more. As regards longer journeys/distances, compartments should offer at least 0.6 m² of personal space. Compartments or cubicles used for transporting detainees should be of a reasonable height. All transport vehicles should be clean, sufficiently lit and ventilated, and heated appropriately. Transport vehicles should be equipped with suitable means of rest (such as appropriate benches or seats). For overnight transport by train, compartments should be equipped with beds or sleeping platforms and inmates should be provided with mattresses and sheets/blankets during the journey. The necessary arrangements should be made to provide detainees with drinking water as required and, for long journeys/distances, with food at appropriate intervals. In the context of long journeys, arrangements should be made to allow detainees to have access to sanitary facilities or to satisfy the needs of nature in conditions offering sufficient privacy, hygiene and dignity. When travelling by road, this implies the organisation of regular stops.” 2. Safety measures “Detained persons should be transported in vehicles suitably designed for that purpose, taking due account of all relevant safety requirements in order to protect detainees. The number of detainees transported should not exceed the capacity of the vehicles used for that purpose. Detainees should not have to stand up during a journey due to a lack of seating space ... All vehicles which are used for the transportation of detained persons should be equipped with appropriate safety devices (such as safety belts).” 80.     As regards the conditions for transporting detainees by rail, the CPT examined conditions similar to those obtaining in the instant case during a visit to Ukraine and found that “the manner in which prisoners [were] transported ... [was] unacceptable, having regard inter alia to the material conditions and possible duration of travel”. It recommended, as an immediate measure, that the national authorities take steps, in particular, to reduce significantly the maximum number of prisoners per compartment in railway carriages: 3.5   sq. m compartments should never contain more than six persons, and 2 sq. m compartments never more than three persons (Ukraine: Visit 2000, CPT/Inf (2002) 23). By contrast, it found the conditions satisfactory during a contemporaneous visit to Switzerland, where most prisoners were accommodated in single bar-fronted compartments. Compartments had a surface area of 0.9 by 1.5 metres and a height of 1.95 metres, and were fitted with one padded bench (Switzerland: Visit 2001, CPT/Inf (2002) 4). IV.     RELEVANT INTERNATIONAL MATERIAL 81 .     The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (“the Nelson Mandela Rules”) provide, in particular, as follows: Removal of prisoners “45. (1) When the prisoners are being removed to or from an institution, they shall be exposed to public view as little as possible, and proper safeguards shall be adopted to protect them from insult, curiosity and publicity in any form. (2) The transport of prisoners in conveyances with inadequate ventilation or light, or in any way which would subject them to unnecessary physical hardship, shall be prohibited. (3) The transport of prisoners shall be carried out at the expense of the administration and equal conditions shall obtain for all of them.” 82 .     Prisoner transportation in Russia: Travelling into the unknown , a report released by Amnesty International on 25 October 2017, documented the conditions in which prisoners in Russia are transported to correctional facilities. The relevant parts of the report read: “ The problems of prisoner transportation in Russia are ... exacerbated by both history and geography. From the Soviet GULAG the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) has inherited a network of penal colonies many of which are located in sparsely populated parts of the country such as the Far North and Far East due to their origins as labour camps for the extraction of raw materials ... The size of the country combined with the location of the penal colonies means that prisoners must be transported over great distances to reach the colonies where they are to serve their sentences. They will also need to be transported between colonies, to hospitals for treatment and to and from courts for hearings ... FSIN treats all information about prisoner transportation and their whereabouts with the utmost secrecy. Neither the prisoner, nor their families or lawyers are informed about the end destination before the transfer begins ... Lack of information about their whereabouts increases their vulnerability because prison monitoring bodies and lawyers will not be able to locate the prisoners in order to visit them while they are travelling. During transportation, prisoners are placed in overcrowded train carriages and trucks in conditions that often amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment ... During transportation, prisoners have limited access to toilets, and during lengthy waits on sidings, no access at all ... The disorientating effect of being transported to an unknown destination via an unknown route is compounded by the sensory deprivation of the journey: the ‘Stolypin’ carriages on the trains do not have windows, neither do the prison vans, and prisoners are not allowed to have their watches with them ...” THE LAW I.     JOINDER OF THE APPLICATIONS 83.     Having regard to the similarity of the applicants’ grievances, the Court is of the view that the applications should be joined in accordance with Rule 42 § 1 of the Rules of Court. II.     COMPLIANCE WITH ARTICLE 38 OF THE CONVENTION 84.     The preliminary issue the Court needs to deal with before embarking on the examination of the admissibility and merits of the applicants’ complaint is whether or not the Government have complied with their procedural obligation under Article 38 of the Convention to submit the evidence that the Court had requested from them. Article 38 reads as follows: “The Court shall examine the case together with the representatives of the parties and, if need be, undertake an investigation, for the effective conduct of which the High Contracting Parties concerned shall furnish all necessary facilities.” 85.     When giving notice of the first application at the origin of the instant case (no. 18255/10), the Court put a number of questions to the parties and requested the Government to produce a copy of the Conveyance Instruction, of technical standards and specifications of prison vans and railway carriages, and of judgments and decisions of Russian courts concerning the transfer of prisoners. In reply, the Government submitted a unilateral declaration. They did not reply to the Court’s request for written evidence. 86.     Upon rejecting the Government’s declaration (see paragraph 5 above), the Court fixed a new time-limit for the submission of the requested material. By a letter of 17 December 2014, the Government replied that the Court had erred in rejecting the declaration. They did not comment on the request for documentation. On 26 January 2015 the Court asked the parties to comment on whether the Government’s refusal to produce evidence disclosed a breach of Article 38 of the Convention. 87 .     On 16 February 2015 the Government replied that they did not see any need to submit the requested documents because they had acknowledged a violation of Article 3 and submitted a declaration. In the meantime, the applicants’ representative offered to submit some of the requested material. The Court accepted his offer. On 19   February 2015 he submitted a copy of the Conveyance Instruction and technical standards. The received material was sent to the Government, who were given an additional time-limit to submit comments on it. In a letter of 16 June 2015, the Government refused to make any comments. 88.     The Court will examine the matter in the light of the general principles concerning compliance with Article 38 of the Convention as they have been summarised in Janowiec and Others v. Russia ([GC], nos.   55508/07 and 29520/09, §§ 202-06, ECHR 2013). 89.     Being master of its own procedure and of its own rules, the Court has complete freedom in deciding what kind of evidence the parties are required to produce for due examination of a case. It is sufficient that the Court regards the evidence contained in the requested material as necessary for that purpose (ibid., §   208). The question of whether certain documents or evidence should or should not be submitted to the Court is not a matter that can be decided by the respondent Government, who are obliged, as a party to the proceedings, to comply with the Court’s requests for evidence (see Davydov and Others v. Ukraine , nos.   17674/02 and 39081/02, § 171, 1   July 2010). 90.     The Court cannot accept the Government’s argument that their obligation to produce the requested material was extinguished once they had submitted a unilateral declaration acknowledging a vio