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Christiana Stilianidou 19 • 05 • 2022

The case of Zographos and others v. Greece – European Court finds Greece to be in violation of Article 13 of the ECHR.

Christiana Stilianidou
The case of Zographos and others v. Greece – European Court finds Greece to be in violation of Article 13 of the ECHR.
19 • 05 • 2022

In the case of Zographos and Others v. Greece, the ECtHR condemned Greece for violation of Article 13 of the ECHR. In particular, following its settled case-law on the matter, the Court held that there had been a violation of the said Article because the applicants had no effective and real remedy available to them to enable them to complain about the conditions of their detention.

Article 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights (hereafter the ECHR) 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.

The ECtHR, ruling on the merits of the case for the other applicants, concluded that there was no violation of Article 3 ECHR, stating inter alia that there was no problem of overcrowding in the prison in question and that the applicants did not describe/identify other specific conditions of detention that could lead to the conclusion that they were detained in conditions amounting to inhuman or degrading treatment (see more in paragraphs 104-107 and 112-125).

On the other hand, the ECtHR, examining the cases of applicants 1, 2, 4, 6, 10 to 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 26 to 28, 30 and 32 to 34 and their period of detention in the closed prison section, seeing no reason to depart in this case from its established case-law on the subject, concluded that there had been a violation of Article 13 of the ECHR in conjunction with Article 3, as the applicants had no effective and real remedy available to them to enable them to complain about the conditions of their detention.

Where is the problem with the rule of law?

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 particular case, however, the European Court of Human Rights held that there had been a breach of Article 13 in conjunction with Article 3 by Greece, since no effective remedy was available to the applicants to enable them to complain about the conditions of their detention in the closed section of Kassandra prison.

Christiana Stilianidou
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