Published on 12 December 2022

FIFTH SECTION

Application no. 20068/21 Fedor Valentinovich BELOUS against Ukraine lodged on 9 April 2021 communicated on 22 November 2022

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns an issue of an alleged ill-treatment of a disabled person as a result of the inadequate conditions of his detention in prison.

The applicant, a life-term prisoner and a second-degree disability person, who is partially paralysed and uses a wheelchair and suffers from hepatitis C, complains that he has been ill-treated in Zhytomyr prison no. 8 as from April 2012 because the conditions of detention in that prison are not adapted for people with special needs and, therefore, are inadequate. In particular, he complains that due to his disability and lack of special equipment he has not being allowed to take daily walks and has no access to a shower, that he has to spend twenty-four hours per day in his cell with the same cellmate, that the cell is damp, lacks ventilation, heating, hot water and toilet isolation, that there is no access to fresh air and daily light. The medical care and nutrition are also not adequate. Lastly, he complains that there are no effective remedies on the national level.

The applicant raises his complaints under Articles 3 and 13 of the Convention.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Did the material conditions of the applicant’s detention in the Zhytomyr Prison no. 8 amount to inhuman or degrading treatment, in breach of Article 3 of the Convention (see Muršić v. Croatia [GC], no. 7334/13, §§ 96-101, ECHR 2016, and Sukachov v. Ukraine , no. 14057/17, §§ 84-86, 30 January 2020)?

2. In view of the applicant’s disability, can it be said that the treatment he had received in detention, without the requisite special conditions and equipment, had been inhuman or degrading (see, for instance, Price v. the United Kingdom , no. 33394/96, § 30, ECHR 2001-VII)?

3. Has the applicant had at his disposal any effective domestic remedy for his complaint under Article 3 of the Convention about the inadequacy of conditions of detention in the Zhytomyr Prison no. 8 altogether and specifically for people with special needs, as required by Article 13 of the Convention ?