CEDH · PRESS;CHAMBERJUDGMENTS;ENG — 11 avril 2006

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s40F41F73 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .s4B8D41EE { font-family:Arial; font-size:10pt } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s6B505E72 { margin:0pt; padding-left:0pt } .sD711EC90 { margin-left:31.52pt; padding-left:7.48pt; font-family:serif } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .sC7EAD8B { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:underline } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt } EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS   209 11.4.2006   Press release issued by the Registrar   CHAMBER JUDGMENT LEGER v. FRANCE   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment [1] in the case of Léger v. France (application no. 19324/02).   The Court held, by five votes to two, that there had been:   no violation of Article 5 § 1 (a) of the European Convention on Human Rights (right to liberty and security) ; no violation of Article 3 of the Convention (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment).   (The judgment is available only in French.)   1.     Principal facts   Lucien Léger is a 69-year-old French national who lives in Landas (France).   In July 1964 he was arrested and charged with the abduction and murder of Luc Taron, an 11-year-old boy. He made a confession while in police custody but retracted it several months later. He has protested his innocence ever since.   In a judgment of 7 May 1966, the Seine-et-Oise Assize Court found the applicant guilty of the offences charged and sentenced him to life imprisonment. He made unsuccessful applications in 1971 and 1974 for a retrial.   He became eligible for parole on 5 July 1979 after 15 years in prison. Between 1985 and 1998 Mr Léger made numerous applications for release, all of which were refused. In addition, he made several unsuccessful applications for a presidential pardon.   In 1999 he again requested his release on licence. Despite a favourable opinion by the Sentence Enforcement Board, his request was turned down by the Minister of Justice.   In January 2001 the applicant made a further application for release. He again submitted that friends had offered to accommodate him on his release in an outbuilding at their home and to give him work in their bakery. The Sentence Enforcement Board issued a unanimous opinion in favour of his release on licence and the applicant’s probation and rehabilitation officer also strongly recommended that he be released.   Despite that, the Douai Regional Parole Court rejected the request on 6 July 2001 on the grounds that the applicant continued to deny that he had committed the offence of which he had been convicted, that the experts could not exclude the possibility that he was still dangerous and might re-offend and would not be able to do so unless he underwent a course of psychiatric treatment, and that as the applicant had no intention of following such a programme it was not clear that he was making “serious efforts to ensure his social rehabilitation”. That decision was upheld on appeal on 23 November 2001 by the National Parole Court on the grounds that the applicant’s planned rehabilitation had been put in doubt by the intervening bankruptcy of the person who had offered to put him up and give him work and that he was unwilling to seek counselling even though he presented paranoid tendencies.   In January 2005 the applicant again submitted a request for his release on licence, which the prison authorities supported but which was opposed by the public prosecutor, who pleaded in particular the risk that he might re-offend. The court responsible for the execution of sentence ruled that his conduct no longer stood in the way of his release and that the risk of his re-offending had dwindled almost to nothing. It accordingly granted him release on licence. In addition to the classic requirements relating to his place of residence and his contacts with the judge responsible for the execution of sentence, the applicant had to accept specific conditions, such as the obligations to submit to medical examinations and treatment, not to distribute any publication or audiovisual work produced or co-produced by himself covering, in whole or in part, the offence committed, and to refrain from any public comment on the offence.   Consequently, Mr Léger was released on licence on 3 October 2005, after spending more than 41 years in prison.   2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 6 May 2002 and declared partly admissible on 21 September 2004. A hearing was held in public in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on 26 April 2005.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   András Baka (Hungarian), President , Jean-Paul Costa (French), Rıza Türmen (Turkish), Karel Jungwiert (Czech), Mindia Ugrekhelidze (Georgian), Antonella Mularoni (San Marinese), Elisabet Fura-Sandström (Swedish), judges , and also Sally Dollé , Section Registrar .   3.     Summary of the judgment [2]   Complaints The applicant complained that his continued detention had become arbitrary, particularly after the refusal of his 2001 application for release on licence. He also submitted that in practice it was tantamount to a whole-life sentence and therefore constituted inhuman and degrading treatment. He relied on Article 5 § 1 (a) and Article 3 of the Convention.   Decision of the Court   Article 5 § 1 (a) Having regard to the extreme gravity of the offence committed by the applicant, the Court considered that his sentence of life imprisonment had not been arbitrary for the purposes of Article 5. It noted that the sentence imposed had not prevented the applicant from being released, since he had obtained release on licence with a view to preventing his irreversible exclusion from society.   As regards whole-life sentences, the Court considered that, once the punitive element of the sentence had been served, continued detention should be grounded on considerations relating to risk and dangerousness. In that connection, it noted that the French courts had refused the applicant’s 2001 application for release on licence because “the experts could not exclude the possibility that he was still dangerous and might re-offend” and because “the paranoid tendencies noted again by the last expert require psychiatric treatment, which the offender does not intend to undergo”. Although those grounds placed more emphasis on improving the applicant’s conduct than on his social rehabilitation, the Court observed that they were not unconnected to the question of his dangerousness, which the courts had a duty to assess. Moreover, the applicant had been granted release on licence in 2005 because his conduct no longer stood in the way of his release and the risk of his re-offending had dwindled almost to nothing.   In the Court’s opinion, the grounds given by the French courts for keeping Mr Léger in prison were not unwarranted, in view of both the initial purpose of punishment and the persistence of reasons militating against his release. Although the courts had decided to release him only in 2005, after 41 years in prison – an exceptionally lengthy period which raised serious questions regarding the management of prisoners serving life sentences – it did not appear that the reasons they had previously given had been “unreasonable”, including the occasion in 2001 when they had refused to follow the favourable opinions of the prison authorities. One year before the eventual release, that is in 2004, the experts could still not exclude with certainty the possibility that the applicant might be dangerous, given his character and his personality.   Consequently, the Court considered that the applicant’s detention after 2001 had been justified under Article 5 § 1 (a) and accordingly held that there had been no violation of that provision.       Article 3 The applicant had been released after an exceptionally lengthy period of imprisonment, resulting from a sentence imposed at a time when the tariff system ( périodes de sûreté ) did not exist. However, from 1979 onwards, that is after the first 15 years, he had been able to request his release on licence at regular intervals and had been protected by procedural safeguards. He could not therefore assert that he had been deprived of all hope of obtaining partial remission of his sentence, which was not irreducible. The Court accordingly took the view that the applicant’s prolonged detention did not as such, however long it had been, constitute inhuman or degrading treatment.   While accepting that a life sentence like that imposed on and served by the applicant necessarily entailed anxiety and uncertainty linked to prison life and, after release, to the measures of assistance and supervision and the possibility of being re-incarcerated, the Court did not consider that the applicant’s sentence had reached such a level of severity as to be contrary to Article 3. It could see no other circumstance, in terms of some aggravation of the suffering inherent in imprisonment, warranting the conclusion that the applicant had undergone an exceptional ordeal capable of constituting treatment contrary to Article 3.   Consequently, the Court held that there had been no violation of Article 3.     Judge Costa expressed a partly dissenting opinion, Judge Mularoni a partly concurring and partly dissenting opinion, and Judge Fura-Sandström a dissenting opinion. These opinions are annexed to the judgment.   ***   The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Press contacts: Emma Hellyer (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 15) Stéphanie Klein (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 88 41 21 54) Beverley Jacobs (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 54 21)   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. Since 1 November 1998 it has sat as a full-time Court composed of an equal number of judges to that of the States party to the Convention. The Court examines the admissibility and merits of applications submitted to it. It sits in Chambers of 7 judges or, in exceptional cases, as a Grand Chamber of 17 judges. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe supervises the execution of the Court’s judgments. [1] Under Article 43 of the European Convention on Human Rights, within three months from the date of a Chamber judgment, any party to the case may, in exceptional cases, request that the case be referred to the 17 ‑ member Grand Chamber of the Court. In that event, a panel of five judges considers whether the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention or its protocols, or a serious issue of general importance, in which case the Grand Chamber will deliver a final judgment. If no such question or issue arises, the panel will reject the request, at which point the judgment becomes final. Otherwise Chamber judgments become final on the expiry of the three-month period or earlier if the parties declare that they do not intend to make a request to refer. [2] This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.