The European Court of Human Rights dealt with the right to be free from inhuman and degrading treatment in a case concerning a former detainee of Gldani Prison in Tiblisi in the decision Ochigava v. Georgia. The applicant complained that the state had been in breach of the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment under article 3 ECHR.

 

The abuses started to be investigated domestically as part of a large-scale criminal investigation into the systematic ill-treatment of inmates at different prisons that had taken place in Georgia between 2010 and 2012, among which Gldani Prison. According to this investigation, the applicant had been subjected to repeated acts of ill-treatment by identifiable prison officers (paragraph 10). Among the abuses there had been solitary confinement, denial of food, family visits and use of a toilet. Following the routine procedure of beating to which newly arrived prisoners were usually subjected, the applicant suffered multiple bruises and broken teeth (paragraphs 13-15). Further, prison officers had arbitrarily imposed excessive restrictions to assert their power and control, such as forbidding prisoners to speak at a normal volume, insulting them verbally, and prohibiting them to lie down on their beds (paragraphs 11-12).

 

The Court also evaluated whether there had been a violation of the procedural limb under article 3 ECHR. It found that, although national courts had secured some convictions, the investigation into the applicant’s allegations had been ineffective, due to periods of unexplained inactivity and unresponsiveness by the domestic authorities to the applicant’s requests. For these procedural and substantive reasons, the Court found a violation of article 3 on account of the applicant’s ill-treatment, certain acts of which had amounted to torture.

 

(Comment by Giovanna Gilleri)