Information Note on the Court’s case-law 42

May 2002

D.G. v. Ireland - 39474/98

Judgment 16.5.2002 [Section III]

Article 5

Article 5-1-d

Educational supervision

Detention of minor in penal institution in absence of appropriate facilities: violation

Article 3

Degrading treatment

Inhuman treatment

Detention of minor in penal institution: no violation

Facts : The applicant was in the care of the local authority from the age of two. Successive placements failed due to his behaviour and in 1996 he was sentenced in the United Kingdom to nine months’ imprisonment. He served the latter part of his sentence in St. Patrick’s Institution in Ireland. After his release, he stay ed in a hostel for homeless boys. The local authority considered that his needs would be met by a high support therapeutic unit for 16-18 year olds but no such unit existed in Ireland. The High Court appointed a guardian ad litem and gave the applicant lea ve to apply for judicial review for a declaration that the local authority had deprived him of his constitutional rights by failing to provide suitable care and accommodation and for an injunction directing the authority to provide such care and accommodat ion. On 27 June 1997 the court, noting that there was no secure unit in Ireland where the applicant could be detained and looked after, with “considerable reluctance” ordered his detention in St. Patrick’s for three weeks, subject to certain conditions. Th e applicant’s appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court, which held that the High Court had jurisdiction to order his detention in a penal institution and that it had properly exercised that jurisdiction. The High Court subsequently continued the applicant’ s detention, initially until 23 July and then until 28 July, when new accommodation identified by the local authority was to be ready. The applicant was duly released and placed in the new accommodation, from which he later absconded. He was arrested and b rought before the High Court, which ordered his detention in St. Patrick’s until 28 August, when he was released into the custody of the local authority on the same terms as previously. In February 1998 he was placed in new temporary accommodation.

Law : Article 5 § 1 (d) – As the orders placing the applicant in St. Patrick’s were made by the High Court, which did not have custodial rights over him, Article 5 applied. Moreover, the applicant was “deprived of his liberty” from 27 June to 28 July 1997. Alt hough he turned 17 during that period and could no longer have been required to attend school, he remained a “minor”under Irish law and the question was whether his detention was lawful and “for the purpose of educational supervision” within the meaning of Article 5 § 1 (d). The domestic lawfulness of the orders was not in doubt, given the well-established inherent jurisdiction of the High Court to protect a minor’s constitutional rights. As to lawfulness under the Convention, the Court’s case-law (see Boua mar v. Belgium judgment, Series A no. 129) provided that if Ireland chose a constitutional system of educational supervision implemented through court orders to deal with juvenile delinquency, it was obliged to put in place appropriate institutional facili ties which met the security and educational demands of that system. While “educational supervision” must not be equated rigidly with notions of classroom teaching, St. Patrick’s did not constitute “educational supervision”, being a penal institution which provided optional educational facilities of which the applicant did not avail himself. Moreover, the applicant’s detention there could not be regarded as an “interim custody measure” followed speedily by an educational supervisory regime, as the first two detention orders were not based on any specific proposal for his secure and supervised education, while the third order was based on a proposal for temporary accommodation which turned out to be neither secure nor appropriate. Even if it could be assumed t hat the applicant’s detention from February 1998 was secure and appropriate, it was put in place more than six months after his release from St. Patrick’s. Accordingly, the detention between 27 June and 28 July 1997 was not compatible with Article 5 § 1 (d ) and as no other basis for the detention had been advanced there had been a violation of Article 5 § 1.

Conclusion : violation (unanimously).

Article 5 § 5 – As the detention orders were lawful under domestic law and the Convention has not been incorporate d into Irish law, the applicant had no enforceable right to compensation.

Conclusion : violation (unanimously).

Article 3 – The High Court’s intent was protective and it could not be concluded that the applicant’s detention constituted “punishment”. Nor did the evidence submitted support the conclusion that the detention of the applicant, as a minor not charged or c onvicted of any offence, in a penal institution could in itself constitute inhuman or degrading treatment, taking into account that it had a regime adapted to juvenile detainees and that the regime was tempered by the specific conditions imposed by the Hig h Court. Furthermore, the fact that the applicant was subject to prison discipline did not in itself give rise to any issue under Article 3, in the light of his history of criminal activity, self-harm and violence to others. There was no psychological, med ical or other expert evidence substantiating the mental and physical impact of the regime alleged by the applicant and no evidence that he had been ill-treated by fellow-inmates on account of his unique status. Finally, as to his complaint that he was hand cuffed for court appearances, the fact that he was a minor was not sufficient to bring this within the scope of Article 3, the intent being reasonable restraint.

Conclusion : no violation (unanimously).

Article 8 – The unlawfulness of the applicant’s detent ion did not give rise to any separate issue under Article 8, given the reasoning under Article 5. Moreover, even assuming the restrictions and limitations of detention in St. Patrick’s constituted an interference with the applicant’s private and family lif e, they would be proportionate to the legitimate aims. Finally, the handcuffing of the applicant did not disclose any interference with the rights guaranteed under Article 8.

Conclusion : no separate issue/no violation (unanimously).

Article 14 – Any differ ence in treatment between minors and adults requiring containment and education would not be discriminatory, stemming as it does from the protective regime applied to minors in the applicant’s position. There was accordingly an objective and reasonable jus tification. As to the applicant’s situation in comparison to that of other minors, no separate issue arose, given that the issue was the same as that lying at the heart of the complaint under Article 5.

Conclusion : no violation/no separate issue (unanimous ly).

Article 41 – The Court awarded the applicant € 5,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage and also made an award in respect of costs and expenses.

© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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