CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 9 janvier 2007

.s3ABFC313 { font-size:10pt } .sEB86A30B { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:14pt; page-break-after:avoid } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .sA241FE93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:18pt; text-align:justify; page-break-after:avoid; border-bottom:0.75pt solid #000000; padding-bottom:1pt } .s2EF62ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:12pt } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .s8F2B0B1B { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:12pt } .s9FF10068 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:12pt } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .s5F48796F { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify } .s5CB9E8AB { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify; border-bottom:1pt solid #000000; padding-bottom:1pt } .sDF790F1E { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s3DC36BA9 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 93 January 2007 Puzinas v. Lithuania (no. 2) - 63767/00 Judgment 9.1.2007 [Section II] Article 8 Article 8-1 Respect for correspondence Minor disciplinary penalty for breach of requirement to conduct correspondence through prison administration: no violation   Facts : The applicant is the president of an organisation for prisoners' mutual assistance and support. In 1999, while serving a sentence in prison, he signed a letter on behalf of his organisation and certain other prisoners complaining about the conditions of detention and about various allegedly unlawful acts of the prison administration. The complaint was addressed to State officials and media representatives and was sent via an inmate who had been released from the prison, in order to avoid censorship. The prison department director held that the sending of the complaint through channels other than the prison administration had breached the Prison Code and punished the applicant by prohibiting him from receiving a parcel during a personal visit. The director also held that the applicant could only send the complaint to the State authorities, not to other organisations or persons and that the Prison Code prohibited complaints on behalf of other prisoners. The applicant's appeal against the penalty was rejected by the administrative courts. The courts held that he had been punished not for corresponding with representatives of the media, but for a breach of the requirement to conduct such correspondence through the prison administration which had deprived the latter of the right to submit their comments as to the issues set out in his complaint. Law : The ordinary and reasonable requirements of imprisonment may justify a system of internal inquiry into prisoners' complaints about their treatment and conditions of detention. The applicant's complaints had received an adequate judicial review and the penalty imposed on him had been of a minor nature. His possible fear of censorship had not been a valid excuse for circumventing an apparently legitimate prison rule regarding the channels of complaint. In the specific circumstances of the present case, the authorities had not overstepped their margin of appreciation and the interference had been proportionate and necessary in a democratic society. Conclusion : no violation (unanimously).   © Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court. Click here for the Case-Law Information Notes