Information Note on the Court’s case-law 42

May 2002

Naumenko v. Ukraine (dec.) - 42023/98

Decision 7.5.2002 [Section II]

Article 3

Inhuman treatment

Alleged administration of medicines and psychotropic injections to a detainee and physical ill-treatment: admissible

By a final decision of 1996, the applicant was sentenced to death for the murders of two persons, one attempted murder and one rape.  Confi ned to “death row”, he was placed under the supervision of a psychiatrist, who diagnosed a psychopathic state, reactive psychosis and suicidal tendencies. The applicant was then subjected to regular medical treatment, namely the administration of medicines and injections of psychotropic drugs. During 1997 and 1998, the applicant was kept handcuffed in his cell for an hour and 25 minutes and, on another occasion, for 25 minutes, in order, in the words of the prison administration, to stop his efforts to resi st his guards and to prevent him from committing suicide. On two subsequent occasions, the applicant was beaten by his guards. The applicant also claims that he was kept handcuffed in his cell without food or drink for four days. The applicant lodged numer ous complaints about ill-treatment and torture, particularly with the public prosecutor’s office. The public prosecutor’s office informed him that, following the investigations carried out, no evidence to confirm the alleged ill-treatment and torture had b een found. In June 2000, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. The board of psychiatric experts which examined the applicant in December 2000 established that he had not been mentally ill when sent to prison, and that his behaviour was due to acc usations and not to his detention conditions. Transferred to another establishment, the applicant was again examined by a board of experts, which found that the psychotropic drugs were necessary because of the applicant's temporary psychiatric imbalance, a nd could not give rise to either reactive psychosis or psychopathy.

Admissible under Articles 3 (the objection of failure to exhaust domestic remedies was considered jointly with the merits of the complaint) and 13.

Inadmissible under Article 6 § 1 (fairne ss): the proceedings about which the applicant complains terminated with the July 1996 decision, a final domestic decision within the meaning of Article 35 § 1, issued before the Convention came into force in respect of Ukraine.  In practice, the June 2000 decision to commute the applicant's death penalty into life imprisonment was merely a formal procedural act resulting from the legislative amendments which followed the abolition of the death penalty in Ukraine, and cannot therefore be taken into account by the Court when determining its jurisdiction ratione temporis over this application: incompatibility ratione temporis .

The Court decided to make an on-the-spot visit.

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