Szafrański v. Poland (Application no. 17249/12)

Key paragraph(s) can be found below the document.

Article 3 (no breach):

27. The Court notes that in previous cases where the insufficient partition between sanitary facilities and the rest of the cell was at issue, other aggravating factors were present and only their cumulative effect allowed it to find a violation of Article 3 of the Convention (see Canali v. France, no. ). In contrast, in the present case, as appears from the Government’s submissions, confirmed by the findings made by the domestic courts, the only hardship that the applicant had to bear was the insufficient separation of the sanitary facilities from the rest of the cell. Apart from that, the cells were properly lit, heated and ventilated. The applicant also had access to various activities outside the cells (see paragraphs 8 and 16 above).

28. Taking into consideration the foregoing, the Court considers that the overall circumstances of the applicant’s detention in Wronki Prison cannot be found to have caused distress and hardship which exceeded the unavoidable level of suffering inherent in detention or went beyond the threshold of severity under Article 3 of the Convention.

Article 8 (breach):

39. The Court notes that between 31 March 2010 and 6 December 2011 the applicant was placed in ten cells, seven of which had sanitary facilities which were not fully separated off. In those cells he had to use the toilet in the presence of other inmates and was thus deprived of a basic level of privacy in his everyday life. The applicant raised the matter with the prison authorities and requested that at least a curtain be hung in place to separate off the sanitary facilities. The prison authorities replied that domestic law did not set out specific regulations as regards the way in which sanitary facilities were to be fitted and separated off in prison cells (see paragraph 31 above).

40. It follows that in the present case the domestic authorities failed to discharge their positive obligation of ensuring a minimum level of privacy for the applicant when he was detained in Wronki Prison.

41.Taking into consideration the above, the Court concludes that there has been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention.