Published on 30 January 2023

THIRD SECTION

Application no. 29348/18 Adrian Santhony MARTHA against the Netherlands lodged on 11 June 2018 communicated on 9 January 2023

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the alleged lack of any genuine prospect of the applicant’s release from his life-imprisonment sentence due to a lack of rehabilitation opportunities. That sentence was imposed on him by a first instance court in 2015 and, on appeal, by the Joint Court of Justice of Aruba ( Gemeenschappelijk Hof van Justitie ), Curaçao, Sint Maarten and of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba in 2016; he was found guilty of, inter alia , being the co-perpetrator of two murders and of several counts of attempted murder and attempted manslaughter. On 16 January 2018 the Supreme Court rejected the applicant’s appeal on points of law.

The applicant, in essence, alleges that he is not provided with an opportunity to rehabilitate himself and that, as a result, his life sentence is de facto irreducible, contrary to Article 3 of the Convention.

QUESTION TO THE PARTIES

Is the applicant’s life sentence compatible with Article 3 of the Convention? In particular, are the regime and conditions of the applicant’s incarceration such as to provide him with a genuine opportunity to rehabilitate himself (see Harakchiev and Tolumov v. Bulgaria , nos. 15018/11 and 61199/12, §§ 263-65, ECHR 2014 (extracts), and Murray v. the Netherlands [GC], no. 10511/10, §§ 101-04, 26 April 2016)?