The Court examined the case of a detainee belonging to a “lower caste of pariahs” within the informal hierarchy existing in Moldovan prisons, a system of prisoner self-governance tacitly tolerated by the prison authorities. As noted by the Court, the existence of such a hierarchy is a legacy of the Soviet prison system and is also present in other States formerly belonging to the Soviet Union after its dissolution. The phenomenon had already been addressed in the Court’s case-law in S.P. and Others v. Russia (no. 36463/11, 2 May 2023) and D. v. Latvia (no. 76680/17, 11 January 2024).

According to the Court’s findings, because he was regarded as belonging to the caste of “pariahs”, the applicant received meals separately from the other detainees, was subjected to different medical treatment, was compelled to perform unpaid work, had no access to the prison church, and was rarely authorised to leave his cell, in addition to suffering further forms of exclusion and humiliation.

The Court found a violation of Articles 3 and 14, observing that “the stigmatisation and physical and social segregation suffered by the applicant as a result of his assignment to the group of ‘pariah’ detainees caused him anguish and physical suffering which necessarily exceeded the unavoidable level of suffering inherent in detention, even in the absence of physical violence” (para. 72). The Court further reiterated that the State has a positive obligation to adopt appropriate measures to prevent persons within its jurisdiction from being subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, even where such conduct is carried out by private individuals.

The Court also found a violation of Article 4 § 2, holding that the work imposed on the applicant had a “clearly punitive character, since the tasks assigned to him formed part of the humiliations to which he was subjected because of his status within the informal hierarchy among detainees” and was “physically demanding and/or degrading”, going beyond any legitimate aim of prisoner rehabilitation or of reducing the harmful effects of detention (paras. 111-113).

In conclusion, the Court stated that “the authorities were fully aware, on the one hand, of the applicant’s particular situation and, on the other hand, of the seriousness of the problem of the informal hierarchy among detainees in general, and failed to implement any measure to protect him from ‘forced or compulsory labour’ linked to his membership of the group of ‘pariahs’” (para. 117). Furthermore, it held that the national authorities must address the issue of informal hierarchy in prisons and adopt appropriate measures to resolve the systemic problem that gave rise to the established violation.

 

(Comment by Bernardo Mageste Castelar Campos)