CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 20 janvier 2011

.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 } .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. 137 January 2011 Payet v. France - 19606/08 Judgment 20.1.2011 [Section V] Article 3 Inhuman treatment Repeated transfers of high-security prisoner to avoid escape attempts: no violation   Article 13 Effective remedy Lack of effective remedy to challenge conditions of detention in a punishment cell: violation   Facts – The applicant is currently serving a prison sentence. After having escaped in 2001 he was classified as a “high-risk prisoner”, placed in solitary confinement and made subject to a preventive rotation scheme consisting of frequent moves between prisons aimed at hindering would-be escapees and their accomplices in the preparation and execution of their plans. Between 2003 and 2008 the applicant was moved twenty-six times. He appealed unsuccessfully to the courts against the decision subjecting him to the rotation scheme. In 2007, after escaping again, he was placed in the prison punishment wing for forty-five days. According to the applicant, the premises were dilapidated and unfit for the detention of human beings. His application for a stay of execution of the disciplinary measure was declared inadmissible by the judge for failure to lodge an internal appeal. His subsequent internal appeal against the disciplinary measure was dismissed. Law – Article 3: (a) The rotation scheme – Continual transfers from one institution to another could have harmful effects on a prisoner’s well-being. However, in view of the fact that the applicant had escaped twice, that an attempt to help him escape had failed at the last minute and that he had organised the escape of some of his accomplices, the prison authorities had struck a fair balance between the imperatives of security and the need to provide the applicant with humane conditions of detention. In the present case, those conditions had not attained the minimum threshold of severity required to constitute inhuman treatment within the meaning of Article   3. Conclusion : no violation (unanimously). (b)     Conditions of detention in the punishment cell – The applicant had not been held in decent conditions which respected his dignity. Conclusion : violation (unanimously). Article 13: (a) Alleged absence of a remedy in respect of the rotation scheme – Both the administrative court and the Conseil d’Etat had ruled on the merits of the applicant’s complaint. Conclusion : inadmissible (manifestly ill-founded). (b)     Alleged absence of a remedy against enforcement of the disciplinary measure – The remedy provided for by the Code of Criminal Procedure did not have suspensive effect, although the decision to place a prisoner in a punishment cell was usually enforced immediately. Furthermore, before any other remedy could be tried an appeal had to be lodged with the inter‑regional director of the prison service, who had one month in which to give a decision. Only following such an appeal could an application be made to the administrative court. Accordingly, by the time a judge came to rule on his application the applicant had no longer been detained in the punishment cell. A remedy which did not bear fruit in good time was neither adequate nor effective. In view of the serious repercussions of detention in a punishment cell, it was essential for the prisoner concerned to have access to an effective remedy by which to appeal against the form and substance of the measure before a judicial body. In the instant case the applicant had had no effective remedy available to him by which to complain of his conditions of detention. Conclusion : violation (unanimously). Article 41: EUR 9,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage. (See Khider v. France , no.   39364/05, 9   July 2009, Information Note no.   121)   © 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