Communicated on 11 January 2021 Published on 1 Febr uary 2021

THIRD SECTION

Application no. 48784/20 Ruben GALEANO PENAS against Spain lodged on 26 October 2020

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the alleged prescription of the imprisonment penalty which the applicant is currently serving. The applicant was sentenced to three years of imprisonment in a judgment which became final in January 2014. He was granted the suspension of the execution of the penalty while he was awaiting for the resolution of a pardon request. The pardon request was never answered, but the execution was resumed over five years after the sentence had become final. Domestic courts considered that the five-year statute of limitations of the penalty was interrupted during the time when the execution was suspended. The applicant entered in prison in June 2019. His penalty will be served on 1 June 2022.

The applicant claimed to no avail that according to the applicable law, the fact that the execution of the sentence was suspended and resumed did not interrupt the prescription of the penalty, which was therefore already time-barred when he entered in prison. As a consequence , he also contended that he has been unlawfully deprived of his liberty since June 2019. He invokes Articles 7 and 5 of the Convention.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. T he applicant entered in prison to serve a three-year penalty over five years after his sentencing judgment had become final. Was the reformed version of Article 134 of the Spanish Criminal Code applied retroactively to the detriment of the applicant, as proscribed by Article 7 of the Convention?

2. Has the applicant been deprived of his liberty in breach of Article 5 § 1 (a) of the Convention from 3 June 2019, in view of the fact that his sentence had become final over five years prior to that date and that he had been sentenced to a penalty with a statute of limitations period of five years?