CEDH · CASELAW;COMMUNICATEDCASES;ENG — 25 avril 2025

.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 } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } Published on 12 May 2025   FIRST SECTION Application no. 47684/19 Marcin STEFAŃSKI-PLICHTA against Poland lodged on 1 September 2019 communicated on 25 April 2025 SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE The application concerns special surveillance measures during the applicant’s detention. The applicant was arrested in 2012 in connection with an investigation into allegations of a large-scale fraud and money laundering by a company, Amber Gold, founded by the applicant (see also Marcin   Plichta v. Poland (dec). no. 54127/16, 22 October 2019). In these proceedings, the applicant was convicted on 20 May 2019 and sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment. In the meantime, on 3   December 2018, the applicant started serving a sentence of eighteen month’s imprisonment ordered in another set of proceedings on different charges. Since the beginning of his detention the applicant has been subject to a regime of enhanced protection based on section 212ba of the Code of Execution of Criminal Sentences in order to prevent his suicide and to protect him from other inmates. The regime includes monitoring of the cell by cameras. In addition, in 2016, a special surveillance measure was applied. It consisted of a police officer being permanently sitting on a chair in front of the door to the applicant’s cell which was left open and protected by a plexiglass panel. As a result, the applicant was constantly observed by a person who could see and hear all what happened in his cell. Both day and night, the applicant was also disturbed by the light and noise coming from the corridor. When the applicant expressed the need to use the toilet the officer would half close the door. The enhanced protection regime was imposed by decision of the prison governor and continuously extended on some fifty occasions; the decisions did not specify the manner in which the applicant was to be monitored. The applicant did not appeal against the decisions to extend the regime except on a few occasions in 2021 and 2022 because he agreed to the enhanced protection. However, he contested the special measure and, on many occasions, lodged requests for control of his detention with the penitentiary courts. The penitentiary judges controlled the detention centre and concluded on several occasions that the special measure applied in his case had been lawful and necessary in order to be able to react quickly in the event of a threat to the applicant’s life. On 24 April 2022 the applicant lodged a civil claim for protection of his personal rights in relation to the manner in which he was monitored. He did not claim any financial compensation and withdrew the claim on 25 July 2022 as the enhanced protection regime had been lifted in June 2022. Subsequently, the applicant applied to have the regime put in place again but without the special measure of direct supervision by a prison officer. The applicant made hundreds of requests for access to public information, enquiring the prison governors of all Polish detention centres and prisons about the use of a special measure similar to his. Hundreds of replies showed that, at that time, no other prisoner in Poland had been subjected to such a special measure. The applicant complains that the special measure of surveillance of his cell by means of a prison officer’s permanent presence had no legal basis and constituted an infringement of his rights, in particular his right to privacy and intimacy, and amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment and psychological torment. He relies on Articles 3 and 8 of the Convention. He further complains under Article 13 of the Convention that he had no domestic remedy to complain about the imposition of the special measure since it had been applied without any formal decision. QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES 1.     Did the conditions of the applicant’s detention, in particular the surveillance measures, amount to inhuman or degrading treatment? In particular:   (a) What was the legal basis for the special measure imposed on the applicant between 2016 and 2022 consisting of placing a prison officer directly in front of a transparent partition at the entrance to the applicant’s cell?   (b) On what basis was the applicant considered to be at risk of suicide?   (c) Was the special measure applied continuously and, if not, during which periods of time?   (d) What other surveillance measures were in place?   (e) What were the other conditions of the applicant’s detention, for example in relation to outside walks, facilities in the cell, access to activities outside his cell, restrictions on external visits?   2.     Did the situation complained of amount to a violation of the applicant’s right to respect for his private life within the meaning of Article   8 §   1 of the Convention? If so, was the interference in accordance with the law and necessary in terms of Article   8 §   2?   3.     Did the applicant have at his disposal an effective domestic remedy for his Convention complaints, as required by Article   13 of the Convention?   4.     Linked to the above question, has the applicant exhausted all effective domestic remedies, as required by Article   35 §   1 of the Convention? In particular, would a civil claim for compensation for the infringement of the applicant’s personal rights be an effective remedy within the meaning of this provision in respect of the applicant’s complaint under Articles 3 and 8 of the Convention?