Inhuman and degrading treatment. Article 3 ECHR. Life imprisonment. Possibility of conditional dismissal. The lack of prospect of release or reconsideration of the sentence constitutes inhuman and degrading treatment.
The ECHR, by decision of Sandor Varga et al. against Hungary, dated 17.06.2021 (app.no.39734/15, 35530/16 and 26804/18) held that the failure of national legislation to provide for the possibility of conditional release from the sentence of life imprisonment even after 40 years’ imprisonment is not compatible with the meaning of Article 3 of the ECHR.
In this case the applicants, four Hungarian nationals, Sándor Varga, Á.K., I.K. and Henrik Rostás, had been convicted of heinous crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of release and parole. In particular, the first was convicted of murder of four people and a series of armed robberies committed within a criminal organization, the second and third for the premeditated murder of six people including a 4,5 -year-old child, homicide of great cruelty and racist motives, within a criminal organization as well as for a series of related crimes (armed robberies and offenses related to firearms). Finally, the fourth was convicted for attempted homicide of several people, committed with particular cruelty as well as robberies and assaults.
In the Hungarian legal order, life imprisonment without the possibility of release or parole is expressly provided for by law and is part of the constitutional legal order of Hungary. The Government initially argued that domestic remedies had not been exhausted since recourse to the Constitutional Court provided an effective remedy for the applicants who were entitled to challenge either the constitutionality of the final court judgments or the underlying legal provision. The ECHR dismissed this argument stating that in substance the right to lodge a constitutional complaint is only possible in cases where an individual considers that a provision of law or a court judgment is incompatible with a legal provision of fundamental law and not when these provisions are part of the constitutional legal order itself, as in the present case.
At the same time, it also dismissed the government’s claims that the appeal was out of time. In particular, it noted that the six-month period within which an appeal must be lodged in this regard starts from the date of the final judgment in the exhaustion of domestic remedies procedure but noted that in continuing situations such as those of continuous infringement, the time period starts anew with each new infringement and expires six months after the cessation of the continuing situation. It thus finally declared the appeals admissible and examined them on their merits.
The ECHR ruled that the fact that any release of the second and third applicants could be reviewed through the compulsory pardon procedure if they had served 40 years of their life sentences did not constitute a reduction of the life sentences imposed on them, counting as a conditional dismissal.
Based on these considerations, combined with the lack of sufficient procedural safeguards in the second part of the proceedings, the Court found a violation of Article 3 ECHR in the sense that the non-reducibility of the life sentence in practice constituted degrading treatment, adhering to its established case law
For more details follow the link below https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#{%22languageisocode%22:[%22ENG%22],%22documentcollectionid2%22:[%22JUDGMENTS%22],%22itemid%22:[%22001-210407%22]}
Share this post
Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin