Legal summary

November 2023

Schmidt v. Estonia - 3501/20, 45907/20 and 43128/21

Judgment 28.11.2023 [Section III]

Article 3

Degrading treatment

Inhuman treatment

Consecutive enforcement of disciplinary punishments and security measures in prison resulting in protracted periods of solitary confinement: violation

Facts – The two applicants were detained at the time in Viru prison. They each received a series of disciplinary punishments in the form of solitary confinement under the punishment-cell regime, mainly for refusing to perform their work duties. On one occasion, the first applicant was also placed in a locked isolation-cell as a security measure. Consecutive enforcement of those measures led to uninterrupted periods of solitary confinement amounting to 566 days in respect of the first applicant (20 May 2016 - 6 December 2017) and 482 days in respect of the second applicant (1 June 2016 - 26 September 2017). The first applicant also initially spent between 30 and 69 days with breaks ranging from 6 to 36 days (between 27 June 2015 and 10 May 2016) in solitary confinement under either the punishment-cell regime or under the locked isolation-cell regime.

The domestic courts, in relation to the two longer aforementioned periods, that the consecutive enforcement of the disciplinary punishments was unlawful and violated the applicants’ rights. They awarded the applicants EUR 1,700 and EUR 1,500, respectively, in compensation for the non-pecuniary damage suffered. However, they found that the shorter periods spent by the first applicant in solitary confinement were lawful and did not violate his rights.

Law – Article 3:

(i) Preliminary remarks about the use of solitary confinement as a disciplinary punishment – The Court expressed strong concerns about the use of solitary confinement, as a disciplinary measure, for long and consecutive periods of time. Such practice was, in principle, incompatible with Article 3, save for the Government being able to present compelling reasons as to the existence of exceptional circumstances that would justify such practice and to show that such disciplinary punishment was indeed used as a last resort. Referring to Resolution A/RES/70/175 of the General Assembly of the United Nations on United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules) and the European Prison Rules , the Court noted that solitary confinement should be imposed only exceptionally as a measure of last resort and for the shortest possible period of time.

The CPT had strongly criticized the Estonian authorities in its reports CPT/Inf (2014) 1 and CPT/Inf (2019) for excessive use of solitary confinement as a disciplinary measure and for separate sanctions being applied consecutively, resulting in very long periods of solitary confinement. The CPT had also noted that the maximum 45-day legal limit for placement in a punishment cell for adult inmates was too long and should be substantially reduced. Indeed, that limit, which should, in principle, operate as a safeguard against abuse, was not only three times longer than the maximum period considered acceptable by the CPT and the United Nations General Assembly (14 days and 15 consecutive days respectively), but also became practically worthless if in practice several disciplinary punishments could be and indeed were enforced consecutively.

The Court could not overlook what seemed to be a common practice in Viru prison to punish prisoners for their refusal to work by placing them in solitary confinement. In that connection, it noted that placement in a punishment cell was the most severe of the disciplinary sanctions available under the Imprisonment Act.

Furthermore, the Court did not underestimate the need to keep discipline and maintain security at prison. Infractions of different gravity might require different response and sanctions. However, given the information before it the Court had strong doubts whether placement in solitary confinement was indeed used exceptionally and as a measure of last resort in Viru prison. It was also open to question whether such supposed administrative practice left room for (re)assessment whether the imposed disciplinary measure had attained its purpose.

(ii) Overall assessment of the conditions of the applicants’ solitary confinement – Prolonged solitary confinement entailed an inherent risk of harmful effect on any person’s mental health, irrespective of the material or other conditions surrounding it.

The Court had regard to the conditions and modalities of solitary confinement in relation to the more limited periods of its application, the fact that both applicants had been under regular medical supervision and that their long-term solitary confinement had not led to a noticeable deterioration in their physical health.

However, aside from rare opportunities to meet with a psychologist and the possibility to request a consultation with a psychiatrist, it did not appear that any measures had been in place to assess – on the prison authorities’ own initiative and at reasonably regular intervals – the applicants’ psychological capacity to deal with long-term solitary confinement and its effect on their mental health. The Court emphasised that prisoners kept in long-term solitary confinement needed particular attention in order to minimise the damage that that measure could do to them. Prisoners subjected to long-term solitary confinement could not always be expected to have the necessary awareness of and capacity to identify their own mental health problems and to ask for specialist intervention. Furthermore, in instances where, as a result of consecutive enforcement of disciplinary punishments, prisoners had spent extensive uninterrupted periods in solitary confinement, granting them a regular access to a psychologist or psychiatrist could not, in itself, justify or validate their continued placement in such conditions.

As for procedural safeguards, the applicants had been aware of the reasons for the imposition of the impugned disciplinary and security measures and could have challenged them before the domestic courts, but they had not done so. They had also had the possibility to challenge – and had challenged – the way those measures had been enforced in respect of them. Their arguments had been assessed at three levels of jurisdiction, and the domestic courts had provided a detailed analysis of their situation and the conditions in which they had had to spend their solitary confinement.

(iii) The Court’s assessment concerning the compatibility of the applicants’ solitary confinement with Article 3 of the Convention – The Court agreed with the Supreme Court’s reasoning in finding that even if the decisions to apply certain measures (disciplinary punishments or security measures) might in themselves be lawful, their uninterrupted enforcement might nonetheless be unacceptable from the perspective of Article 3.

As regards the longer periods of solitary confinement, the Court saw no reason to reach a different conclusion from that of the domestic courts which had relied, inter alia , on the Court’s case-law and had taken into account its duration combined with the scarcity of mental and physical stimulation and the lack of a mechanism to meaningfully assess the applicants’ physical and psychological capacity to deal with long-term solitary confinement.

As regards the shorter periods, the domestic courts had analysed the duration and lawfulness of each of the periods separately and considered whether each of them had been below or over the 45-day limit for each separate disciplinary punishment, the intervening periods that the first applicant had been able to spend under the regular prison regime and the fact that the locked isolation-cell regime had been imposed on him for different purposes than the punishment-cell regime.

The Court acknowledged that, if one accepted the enforcement of lawfully imposed sanctions and security measures, then alternating solitary confinement with periods during which prisoners were held under the regular prison regime did not appear to be arbitrary or excessive in itself.

The Court concurred with the Supreme Court that the longer the periods of solitary confinement, the longer should be the intervening periods during which the person was held under regular prison conditions – which presumably also afforded more possibilities to socialise and engage in other meaningful activities. By contrast, under circumstances in which extended periods of solitary confinement were interrupted only for negligible periods compared to the duration of isolation, such breaks would likely not offer the relief necessary to counteract the negative effects of the protracted isolation regime. The same applied, in principle, even when successive periods of solitary confinement were the result of the application of different disciplinary or security measures – so long as there was no marked difference between those measures in terms of the solitary nature of the detention regime arising from them. The Court acknowledged, however, that owing to the variety of security concerns that prison authorities must face and tackle in the interests of either their personnel or prisoners, it might not be possible to suspend or postpone the application of different security measures.

In the instant case the breaks, ranging between 6 and 36 days, between the periods of solitary confinement could not all be considered negligible. Further, while the period between the enforcement of two sets of disciplinary punishments in September-October 2015 had indeed been 52 days, the first applicant had nonetheless been placed under the locked isolation-cell regime for 33 of those 52 days. Thus, the period that he had spent under the regular regime had only been 19 days long.

Although alternating the enforcement of separate lawful and proportionate disciplinary punishments with reasonably long periods spent under the regular prison regime would not necessarily lead to the finding of a violation under Article 3, the specific circumstances surrounding the first applicant’s case in the instant proceedings could not be ignored: he had not only spent roughly 8 months out of approximately 11 months in solitary confinement between June 2015 and May 2016 (albeit with pauses), but that period had been followed only ten days later by a period of 566 days of uninterrupted solitary confinement. In total, between June 2015 and December 2017, the first applicant had spent only a little over 2 months under the regular prison regime. The Court found that the possibility to attend social programmes, have meetings with an inspector/contact person and a criminal probation officer, and to a lesser extent with a chaplain and with medical professionals and to have a few short-term meetings had not been sufficient to alleviate the negative effects arising from the first applicant having to spend repeated and extended periods in solitary confinement.

Lastly, the Court emphasised that the solitary confinement to which the applicants had been subjected had been imposed (in all instances but one) as a disciplinary measure, leading to their seclusion for long cumulative periods. In that regard, it was significant that the maximum 45-day limit seemed to have had no bearing on the manner the punishments had been consecutively enforced, as the applicants had been kept in solitary confinement for uninterrupted periods much longer than that limit. The Court had doubts whether, in the above circumstances, the solitary confinement as a form disciplinary punishment had been indeed imposed as a measure of last resort. In any event, the Government had not presented compelling reasons as to the existence of exceptional circumstances capable of justifying the use of such long periods of solitary confinement as a purely disciplinary measure.

Accordingly, the applicants’ solitary confinement between 27 June 2015 and 6 December 2017 and between 1 June 2016 and 26 September 2017, respectively had subjected them to hardship going beyond the unavoidable level of suffering inherent in detention.

(iv) The applicants’ victim status in view of the compensation awarded in the domestic proceedings –The first applicant could not be considered to have lost his victim status as regards the shorter periods of solitary confinement since the domestic courts had not found a violation of his rights in that regard. As regards the longer periods, there had been an acknowledgement of a violation in substance by the domestic courts and thus the first condition for the loss of victim status had been fulfilled. However, having regard to the sums it had awarded in similar cases, the Court found that the amounts awarded to the applicants had not constituted appropriate redress for the violations complained of in the light of the standards set by it in comparable situations: they had been unreasonably low, given the nature and duration of the violation of the applicants’ rights under Article 3. The Government’s objection as to the applicants’ victim status, which had been joined to the merits, was therefore dismissed.

Conclusion : violation (unanimously) (in respect of the first applicant for all the periods between 27 June 2015 and 6 December 2017 spent under either the punishment-cell regime or the locked isolation-cell regime; and, in respect of the second applicant for the period between 1 June 2016 and 26 September 2017 spent under the punishment-cell regime).

Article 41: EUR 12,500 to the first applicant and EUR 8,300 to the second applicant in respect of non-pecuniary damage.

(See also Rohde v. Denmark , 69332/01, 21 July 2005, Legal summary ; Ramirez Sanchez v. France [GC], 59450/00, 4 July 2006, Legal summary ; Onoufriou v. Cyprus , 24407/04 , 7 January 2010; Razvyazkin v. Russia , 13579/09 , 3 July 2012; A.T. v. Estonia (no. 2) , 70465/14 , 13 November 2018; N.T. v. Russia , 14727/11, 2 June 2020, Legal summary ; Raudsepp v. Estonia (dec.), 22409/18 , 9 June 2020)

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

To access legal summaries in English or French click here . For non-official translations into other languages click here .