Published on 19 February 2024

THIRD SECTION

Applications nos. 35472/20 and 49738/21 Kamen Sashev RADEV against Bulgaria lodged on 4 August 2020 and 29 September 2021 respectively communicated on 1 February 2024

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASES

The two applications concern complaints under Article 3 (Article 13 also raised) of the Convention in relation to excessive and prolonged prison isolation of the applicant, who had been serving a life-imprisonment sentence until 2022. In April 2022 his sentence was commuted to a 30-year imprisonment and he was released later that month.

The applicant unsuccessfully sought damages under the Execution of Sentences and Pre-Trial Detention Act 2009 in two parallel sets of proceedings.

The first set was brought in 2018 (application no. 35472/20) in connection with the prison administration’s failure “to adequately implement the applicant’s prison regime” and the lack of any meaningful activities, of opportunities for work, education and other means to improve his situation. It concerned the applicant’s detention in Varna Prison during the period between 1 June 2007 and 23 February 2018. In a final judgment of 12 December 2019 the Supreme Administrative Court rejected the applicant’s claim.

The second set of proceedings was brought in 2017 (application no. 49738/21) in connection with the applicant’s prolonged isolation in a locked cell in Varna Prison between 1 January 2014 and 13 March 2017. In a final judgment of 31 March 2021, the Administrative Court Varna rejected the applicant’s claim.

QUESTION TO THE PARTIES

Was the applicant subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment in Varna Prison in the period between January 2014 and May 2017, in breach of Article 3 of the Convention, as a result of the effects on him of the restrictions stemming from the prison regime(s) under which he had been detained and the lack of meaningful activities during that period?