CEDH · CASELAW;COMMUNICATEDCASES;ENG — 15 février 2024

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .s379BC09C { margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s10950C61 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-indent:14.2pt; text-align:justify } .s5E1364CA { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:14pt } .s339D85E6 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:14pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s665E407E { margin-top:66pt; margin-bottom:14pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } Published on 4 March 2024   FOURTH SECTION Application no. 34681/19 Cătălin-Emanuel COSTIN against Romania lodged on 12 June 2019 communicated on 15 February 2024 SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE The application concerns the change of the applicant’s prison regime following the adoption of implementing rules for the application of Law   no.   254/2013. According to the applicant’s allegations, the new rules are more restrictive than the law. By a final decision of 17 June 2016, the Cluj Court of Appeal sentenced the applicant, a minor at that time, to an educational measure to be executed in a detention centre. While the applicant was executing his sentence in an open prison regime based on his commendations for good behaviour, on 12 December 2018 the commission in charge with the execution of sentences in the Arad Prison ordered the applicant’s placement in the prison’s special wing for prisoners executing an educational measure in a detention centre which, according to Articles 339 and 340 of Government Decision no. 157/2016 (“the GD”), is assimilated to closed prison regime. The commission did not provide any specific reasons for changing the applicant’s prison regime; it only justified the regime change by the application of the GD which contained the new rules for the application of Law no. 254/2013. By a decision of 9 April 2019 (made available to the applicant on 8 May 2019), the Arad District Court dismissed the applicant’s complaint against the commission’s decision on the grounds that the change of the prison regime had been carried out in accordance with the law. The applicant complains under Article 3 alone and in conjunction with Article 14 of the Convention about the decision of the commission in charge with the execution of sentences to replace his open prison regime with a closed one without providing specific reasons for it. He also claims that by his placement in the prison’s special wing for prisoners executing an educational measure in a detention centre he started executing a prison regime assimilated to a closed detention, without any possibility of acceding to an open one as other convicted prisoners, who could benefit from a change of their prison regime in accordance with Article 40 of Law no. 254/2013 which prescribes a progressive and regressive system of the prison regime. QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES 1.     Has there been an interference with the applicant’s right to respect for his private and family life, within the meaning of Article   8 §   1 of the Convention on account of the change of his prison regime? 2.     If so, was that interference in accordance with the law and necessary in terms of Article 8 § 2? 3.     Has the applicant suffered, contrary to Article 14 of the Convention read in conjunction with Article 8 of the Convention, discrimination on account of his placement in the Arad prison’s special wing for detainees executing an educational measure in a detention centre, especially taking into account that his new detention regime is assimilated to a closed detention regime without any possibility of acceding to an open prison regime as other convicted detainees?