Legal summary

May 2023

S.P. and Others v. Russia - 36463/11, 11235/13, 35817/13 et al.

Judgment 2.5.2023 [Section III]

Article 3

Degrading treatment

Inhuman treatment

Positive obligations

Segregation, humiliation and abuse of prisoners by fellow inmates on account of inferior status in informal prisoner hierarchy tolerated by prison staff; lack of systemic State action: violation

Facts – The applicants were all serving prisoners in Russian correctional facilities who complained of being subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment on account of their subordinate status as “outcast” prisoners in an unofficial prisoner hierarchy. They lodged complaints with the domestic authorities about the treatment, all of which were summarily rejected.

Law –

Preliminary issue – As the facts giving rise to the alleged violations of the Convention occurred prior to 16 September 2022, the date on which the Russian Federation ceased to be a party to the Convention, the Court had jurisdiction to examine the application.

Article 3:

(a) Establishment of the facts

The informal nature of the prisoner hierarchy, relating as it did to embedded patterns of behaviour, namely abuse and ritualistic and symbolically degrading treatment meted out to “outcast” prisoners by other prisoners, made it an inherently difficult subject for the Court’s examination. The Court had therefore to consider the applicants’ complaints taking into account all the information from different sources provided by them, including official reports and academic research, in order to establish the veracity of their allegations.

The applicants – held in far-off and distant places at different times – had submitted similar accounts of the abuse they had faced, including detailed accounts of the events that led to their classification as “outcast” prisoners. They had also provided evidence to support their claims. Moreover, academic research and the relevant report of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) lent credence to their submissions. Further, as transpired from various reports of public monitoring entities, there were also sufficiently strong indications that the domestic authorities had been aware of the informal hierarchy. In particular, it was clear that both other prisoners and prison staff had been aware of the applicants’ “outcast” status with some of them being placed in special units exclusively for "outcast" prisoners. In addition, the Government had not to engaged with the applicants’ detailed submissions and had not provided an alternative account of events. Therefore, the Court found it established that the applicants had been subjected to the treatment of which they complained of, on the part of fellow prisoners and on account of their status within the informal prisoner hierarchy.

(b) Whether the treatment to which the applicants were subjected reaches the threshold of Article 3

While not every applicant had been subjected to physical violence in connection with their status as “outcast” prisoners, two had suffered physical attacks, while another had been forced to provide sexual services to a member of the “criminal elite”. Further, living in a state of mental anguish and fear of ill-treatment had been an integral part of the applicants’ experience as “outcast” prisoners.

A further indication of degrading treatment had manifested itself in the arbitrary restrictions and deprivations the applicants had endured in their daily life. They were allocated the least comfortable places in the dormitory and canteen and prohibited from using any other areas under threat of punishment. Their access to prison resources, including showers and medical care, had been limited or excluded and they were also forbidden from coming into proximity, let alone touching, other prisoners under threat that that person would become “contaminated”. Denial of human contact was a dehumanising practice that reinforced the idea that certain people are inferior and not worthy of equal treatment and respect. The resulting social isolation and marginalisation of the “outcast” applicants must have caused serious psychological consequences. In addition, allocation of work duties on the basis of status, with “outcast” applicants being forced to perform jobs and occupations deemed “unclean” or otherwise unacceptable for the other prisoners (such as cleaning latrines or shower cubicles), had further debased them and perpetuated the feelings of inferiority. The status-based allocation of work served to perpetuate the separation – on physical and symbolic levels - of the “outcast” applicants and their sense of inferiority and powerlessness would have been intensified due to the permanence of the stigma attached to their low status. The enduring nature of the stigma removed any prospect of improvement for the “outcast” applicants, even after a lengthy period of detention or upon transfer to another institution.

In the light of the above, the Court found that the applicants’ stigmatisation and physical and social segregation, coupled with their assignment to menial labour and denial of basic needs such as bedding, hygiene and medical care, enforced by threats of violence and also occasional physical and sexual violence, had led them to endure mental anxiety and physical suffering that must have exceeded the unavoidable level of suffering inherent in detention, even if not all applicants had been subjected to physical or sexual violence. That situation which the applicants endured for years on account of their placement in the group of “outcast” prisoners had amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment within the meaning of Article 3 of the Convention.

(c) State’s obligation to protect the applicants from ill-treatment

The phenomenon of an informal prisoner hierarchy had been a widespread and well-known problem in Russian penal facilities. Prison staff and the authorities in general ought to have been aware both of its existence and the applicants’ status within it. It had therefore been impossible to ignore the risks of inhuman and degrading treatment which the applicants had confronted on a daily basis throughout the term of their imprisonment. Therefore, it fell to the Government to explain what measures had been taken to address the applicants’ vulnerability.

The prison staff had not deployed any specific and prompt security or surveillance measures to prevent the informal code of conduct from being enforced on the applicants, considered how they could be protected from abuse and harassment, or put in place a proper classification policy which would have included screening for the risk of victimisation and abusiveness. Furthermore, there was no indication that prison staff had had a standardised policy of punishments for inmates who had perpetrated violence seeking to enforce the informal code of conduct on others. The absence of such a policy showed that prison violence was not taken sufficiently seriously and that the prison staff had been prepared to allow detainees to act with impunity to the detriment of the rights of other inmates. It further appeared that the domestic authorities did not have an action plan to address the problem at a structural level and had been unable to indicate any effective domestic remedies capable of offering redress to the applicants affected by it.

Bearing in mind the structural nature of the problem, individual measures would not have addressed the core issue at the heart of the applicants’ grievances. Even if the complaints by the “outcast” applicants had been properly investigated and specific incidents of violence or ill-treatment had been sanctioned, this would not have changed the power structures underlying the informal prisoner hierarchy or the applicants’ subordinate place in it. A transfer to another facility would have done nothing to remove the stigma attached to the “outcast” status linked to the applicants for as long as they remained in facilities governed by an informal code of conduct. Similarly, the possibility of placement in a “safe place” was, under domestic law, a temporary measure.

Some applicants sought to improve their situation by lodging complaints with the regional departments of the Federal Service for the Execution of Sentences, the Ombudsman and even the Federal Security Service but all had been summarily rejected, without hearing the complainants or collecting additional evidence. The Ombudsman had conceded that such complaints had lacked any prospect of success. As regards systemic remedies, it was inexplicable that the Conceptual Frameworks for the Development of the Penal System had not even identified the informal prisoner hierarchy as a problem calling for the attention of the prison authorities. Accordingly, the domestic authorities had taken no steps to protect the applicants from inhuman and degrading treatment associated with their status as “outcast” prisoners. Moreover, the Russian authorities currently had no effective mechanisms to improve the applicants’ individual situation or an action plan for dealing with the issue in a comprehensive manner. Therefore, the Court dismissed the non-exhaustion objection raised by the Government due to lack of the effective remedies available to the applicants and the fact the authorities had taken no action to address the problem in a systematic way.

In sum, the applicants, who belonged to a particularly vulnerable category of “outcast” prisoners, had been subjected to segregation, humiliating practices and abuse in their daily life while in detention, and had been at a heightened risk of inter-prisoner violence. Being subjected to such treatment, for years, had amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment. The State authorities were aware, or ought to have been aware, of the applicants’ vulnerable situation which moreover was a part of a systemic and wide-spread pattern. However, the domestic authorities had done nothing to acknowledge, let alone address, that problem and had taken no general or individual measures to ensure the applicants’ safety and well-being. In view of the extent of the problem, the Russian authorities’ failure to take action could be seen, in the present case, as a form of complicity in the abuses inflicted upon the prisoners under their protection.

Conclusion : violation (unanimously).

The Court also found a violation of Article 13, taken in conjunction with Article 3, in respect of the applicants who raised that complaint.

Art 41: EUR 20,000 (or smaller amount as was claimed) awarded to each applicant in respect of non-pecuniary damage.

(See also Premininy v. Russia , 44973/04, 10 February 2011, Legal Summary ; Ananyev and Others v. Russia , 42525/07 and 60800/08, 10 January 2012, Legal Summary ).

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

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