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European Court of Human Rights finds Greece to be in violation of Articles 3 and 13 of the ECHR in the case of Kargakis v. Greece
Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (hereafter the ECHR) recognizes the absolute right not to be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and thus enshrines one of the fundamental values of democratic societies. Article 13 establishes the right of anyone whose rights under the ECHR have been violated to have access to an effective remedy before national authorities, and imposes an obligation on the State to provide appropriate remedies for this purpose;
On 14-1-2021, the decision of the European Court of Human Rights (hereafter ECtHR) in the case of Kargakis v. Greece (application no. 27025/13) was published, concluding that Greece had violated Articles 3 and 13 of the ECHR in this case. See the decision as posted on the HUDOC database here and the ECtHR press release here.
The applicant complained of his detention conditions in the Diavata prison in Thessaloniki in 2013 where his pre-existing health problems worsened. The applicant alleged that the conditions in the cell for the disabled that he was held in, as well as the general conditions in the prison, amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment, and were incompatible with the state of his health.
The ECtHR ruled that the circumstances of the applicant’s detention, taking into account his disability and the length of his detention, had subjected him to an ordeal, the intensity of which exceeded the unavoidable level of suffering inherent in the detention itself, violating Article 3 of the Convention.
The applicant also complained that the authorities had not substantially examined his complaint that his health problems had been exacerbated by his detention, and that the conditions of his detention were incompatible with his state of health. The ECtHR agreed, ruling that Article 13 had also therefore been violated.
Respect for fundamental rights is one of the key components of a state that is governed by the rule of law. The fundamental rights that every citizen should enjoy are enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights. It is a primary and indisputable obligation of the state to respect these rights.
In this case, however, the European Court of Human Rights found that the applicant’s rights had been violated, as the conditions of his detention constituted inhuman or degrading treatment, whilst his complaints about the conditions also went unexamined by the authorities.
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