CASE OF JAEGER v. ESTONIA
No violation of Article 3 - Prohibition of torture (Article 3 - Degrading treatment;Inhuman treatment) (Substantive aspect);Violation of Article 8 - Right to respect for private and family life (Article 8-1 - Respect for private life)
Erik Møse;Isabelle Berro-Lefèvre;Julia Laffranque;Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos;Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska;Paulo Pinto De Albuquerque;Ksenija Turković
5. The applicant was born in 1987. He is currently serving a prison sentence. 6. On 10 October 2010 the applicant, who was serving his sentence in Tartu Prison, took a walk together with other detainees. When he entered the accommodation block, two prison guards searched him in the stairwell of the building. According to the applicant he was requested to lower his trousers and underpants twice and lift his sexual organ. A guard felt his underpants to find out whether any tobacco products had been hidden therein. According to the applicant he was in the sight of other detainees, since the door to the stairwell where the search was carried out had a transparent window. Another door leading from the stairwell to a corridor of the accommodation block also had a transparent window and detainees or female prison officers could have seen him through it or entered the stairwell at any time. 7. The applicant claimed from the prison administration 25,000 kroons (EEK) (corresponding to approximately 1,600 euros (EUR)) for the non-pecuniary damages he had allegedly sustained. He named three of the detainees who had been behind him when he had entered the building and had been searched. 8. The prison administration rejected the applicant’s claim. Relying on the statements of one of the prison guards involved, the administration found that the search had been conducted in private and not in the sight of other detainees. According to the prison guard’s written statements, the detainees had entered the stairwell one by one. One guard had searched their jackets and the other one had searched the detainees. In the event that they suspected a detainee, they had closed the door in order to create a private space and the detainee in question had been requested to lower his trousers. Only the detainee to be searched and two guards had been in the stairwell. 9. The applicant lodged a complaint with the Tartu Administrative Court. He reiterated his claim, named three detainees who had seen his search and included written statements from two of them. 10. By a judgment of 21 September 2011 the Administrative Court rejected the applicant’s claim. It found reliable the statements of the prison guard, according to whom the applicant’s privacy had been respected. 11. The applicant appealed to the Tartu Court of Appeal. At the Court of Appeal hearing he submitted that the windows of the doors to the stairwell had measured 1 m by 30 cm and that some days after his complaint to the Administrative Court they had been covered by metal sheets to prevent other detainees from seeing the searches. 12. By a judgment of 16 March 2012 the Tartu Court of Appeal dismissed the applicant’s appeal. It established that the search had lasted for a few minutes at most and noted that the applicant had not been sure whether any other detainees had been in the stairwell. He had been unable to explain from where exactly the detainees named by him had seen his search. The Court of Appeal concluded that his privacy had not been violated. It further found that in order to effectively manage a large number of detainees, the prison also had to have the possibility of carrying out a body search of a detainee, when necessary, in a location other than a private room designated for that purpose. In order to conduct such a search it was sufficient that the authorities had a suspicion that a detainee re-entering the building after a walk had hidden cigarettes – which were prohibited in prison – in his underwear. 13. By a judgment of 17 October 2012 the Supreme Court dismissed the applicant’s appeal. It upheld the Court of Appeal’s finding that the applicant’s privacy had not been infringed and his dignity had not been diminished. One of the three judges delivered a separate opinion. He considered that it was not decisive whether the third persons had in fact seen the detainee’s body search. It could not be presumed that a person who was being searched was able to establish at the same time whether the search had been seen, what exactly had been seen and by whom. When a body search was carried out in a situation and location where it was not guaranteed that third persons would not see the person’s nudity, the person concerned was bound to feel that his privacy had not been respected and that other persons might have seen the procedure being performed. Such a situation damaged the person’s dignity and could cause feelings of insecurity, anguish and degradation. 14. According to information provided by the Government, the applicant had three reprimands on record at the time of the search in question, including for unauthorised possession of a cigarette. From the date of the events at issue until mid-2013, twenty further disciplinary punishments had been imposed on him, primarily for violations related to the possession of unauthorised items, mainly cigarettes.