CASE OF SKLYAR v. RUSSIA
No violation of Article 6+6-3-c - Right to a fair trial (Article 6 - Criminal proceedings;Article 6-1 - Fair hearing) (Article 6 - Right to a fair trial;Article 6-3-c - Defence through legal assistance);Violation of Article 3 - Prohibition of torture (Article 3 - Degrading treatment;Inhuman treatment)
Branko Lubarda;Dmitry Dedov;Georgios A. Serghides;Helen Keller;Helena Jäderblom;Pere Pastor Vilanova
6. The applicant was born in 1975 and lived in Novosibirsk before his arrest. 7. On 12 November 2010 the Kalininskiy District Court of Novosibirsk convicted the applicant of aggravated theft and armed robbery and sentenced him to nine years’ imprisonment. The applicant was represented by a lawyer in these proceedings. 8. On 24 January 2011 an appeal brought by the applicant himself was examined by the Novosibirsk Regional Court in the absence of counsel. The appeal court upheld the applicant’s conviction. 9. The applicant has been serving his sentence in IK-8 in Novosibirsk since 10 February 2011. 10. As regards the conditions of the applicant’s detention in the IK-8 facility, the Government submitted information which can be summarised as follows: 11. The Government also submitted that all the units where the applicant had been detained had had a sufficient number of sleeping places for all the detainees, they had been ventilated through openings in the windows and had had access to cold water in accordance with up to date sanitary standards. The units were equipped with ten to fifteen kettles to boil water and tanks containing potable water. All the lavatories had individual cabins with doors that were one and a half metres high, opening to the outside. They submitted photographs of the washbasins and lavatories. 12. The applicant acknowledged that he had an individual sleeping place. However, he underlined that the conditions he had to live in were cramped. He further submitted that the units had no access to natural light or had poor artificial lighting, that the ventilation did not work and that the air was damp. The food he was provided was not in accordance with the special diet prescribed for him. Furthermore, inmates with tuberculosis lived in the same dormitory. There were only three lavatories (in units 17 and 7), they had no doors and the applicant had no privacy when using them. They were clogged up most of the time owing to the number of people using them. Prisoners were only allowed one shower a week. The applicant had no access to potable water and only one washbasin out of four had worked. There were only two kettles for boiling water and the electricity was switched off during the day and therefore it was not possible to have boiled water. The applicant further submitted that the buildings where his units were located were in a hazardous condition and that the roof and walls were liable to fall in at any time owing to a lack of repairs. Lastly, the applicant adduced written statements from his four co-detainees who confirmed his account of the conditions of detention in IK-8 in Novosibirsk.