ĀBOLIŅŠ v. LATVIA
Inadmissible
Ineta Ziemele;Ledi Bianku;Nona Tsotsoria;Päivi Hirvelä;Paul Mahoney;Zdravka Kalaydjieva
1. The applicant, Mr Raitis Āboliņš, is a Latvian national, who was born in 1977 and lives in Jēkabpils. 2. 3. On 1 February 2006 the applicant was arrested in connection with criminal proceedings against him. On 16 May 2006 the applicant’s criminal case was transferred to the Vidzeme Regional Court (Vidzemes apgabaltiesa) for adjudication. On 3 May 2007 the Vidzeme Regional Court convicted the applicant of aggravated murder and sentenced him to fifteen years’ imprisonment, with subsequent two-year period of police supervision. On 22 February 2008 the Criminal Cases Chamber of the Supreme Court (Augstākās tiesas Krimināllietu tiesu palāta) rejected the applicant’s appellate complaint. The Court has no information on whether an appeal on points of law was lodged against the decision of 22 February 2008. 4. The applicant submitted that following his detention he was placed in a short-term detention facility located within the police station in Madona. The applicant had spent most of the pre-trial detention in Valmiera Prison, but whenever he had had to be questioned he had been brought to the short-term detention facility in Madona for between ten and twenty days. Altogether he had spent approximately 100 days in that facility. 5. The applicant made the following submissions on the conditions in the short-term detention facility in Madona. The applicant had not been provided with a mattress, pillow, blanket or bed linen, and had had to sleep on wooden planks. The artificial light had been too weak to permit reading or writing, and in fact had only lit one third of the cell’s total area. The noise from the ventilation machinery had been so loud as to prevent him from sleeping. The toilet had been merely a hole in a platform. Furthermore, the said platform had been fifty centimetres high, which had caused the applicant particular difficulty because he had had a category 3 disability (the least severe disability level) on account of his ankle injury. Furthermore, the applicant had been given food only once a day and had not been allowed outdoor exercise. 6. Following his conviction, the applicant was placed in Daugavpils Prison. The applicant submitted that he had been placed in a cell hosting ten inmates and that he had had to sleep on the top bunk of a bunk bed, despite his disability. Moreover, there had been too little space between the top bunk and the ceiling. Furthermore, the applicant had had no access to radio or television. Finally, half of his cell mates had smoked and there had been no ventilation. 7. On 30 July 2008, on the basis of the applicant’s inquiries, the Ministry of Health informed the applicant that in prisons it was only permitted to smoke in premises specifically set aside for that purpose. 8. Section 7 of the Law on Holding Procedures for Arrested Persons (Aizturēto personu turēšanas kārtības likums), which came into force on 21 October 2005, provides, inter alia, that an arrested person must be provided with food three times a day and drinking water at any time. It lays down the requisite areas of holding cells. It also requires every arrested person to be provided with a separate sleeping place, a mattress and a blanket. It further states that holding cells must be equipped with a toilet that is partitioned off from the cell. Holding cells must also have access to natural light and, during the night-time and dusk, must have artificial lighting. They also must be ventilated. Furthermore, if the detained person is placed in the short-term detention facility for more than 24 hours, she or he is entitled to at least 30 minutes’ outdoor exercise. Section 1 of the same Law states that these provisions are also applicable to detainees and prisoners who have been taken to a short-term detention facility for reasons of procedural acts falling under criminal proceedings. 9. The requisite conditions of detention for detainees are primarily laid down in the Law on Detention Procedure (Apcietinājumā turēšanas kārtības likums), which came into force on 18 July 2006. Section 19 of this Law sets out the minimum areas of cells, which must be ventilated, and requires detainees to be provided with an individual sleeping place. Section 13(1)(10) allows detainees to use a radio and a small television. With regard to convicted persons, similar conditions are provided for in section 471 and section 77 of the Sentence Enforcement Code (Latvijas Sodu izpildes kodekss). 10. Section 11 of the Law on Restrictions regarding the Sale, Advertising and Use of Tobacco Products (Likums “Par tabakas izstrādājumu realizācijas, reklāmas un lietošanas ierobežošanu”), effective since 21 January 1997, sets out the restrictions on smoking. In particular, section 11(1)(2) prohibits smoking in detention facilities, apart from in premises specially set aside for that purpose. Section 11(1)(2) adds that the internal rules of the relevant establishment may provide for the possibility of smoking outside such premises, having due regard to the physical and mental health of the inmates. 11. Regulation no. 827 (2005) of the Cabinet of Ministers, effective since 5 November 2005, provides that the Head of the Prisons Administration decides on legal challenges brought by private individuals against “administrative acts” issued by or “actions of a public authority” taken by its subordinate officers, unless otherwise prescribed by law (paragraph 6 and 13). The decision of the Head of the Prisons Administration can be brought to court (para 13). 12. The Administrative Procedure Law (Administratīvā procesa likums), which came into force on 1 February 2004, provides for the right to challenge administrative acts and actions of public authorities before the administrative courts. The relevant provisions of the Law were summarised in the case of Melnītis v. Latvia (no. 30779/05, §§ 24-26, 28 February 2012). 13. Section 195 of the Administrative Procedure Law, at the time of the latter’s enactment, provided that the court could order an interim measure (pagaidu noregulējums) where there was reason to believe that the execution of the court’s judgment might become difficult or impossible. With the amendments to the Administrative Procedure Law which took effect on 1 December 2006, section 195 was modified, and currently states that the court may order an interim measure where there is reason to believe that if the impugned administrative act remained in force, it could cause significant harm or damage, the prevention or restitution of which could be made very difficult or would require disproportionate resources, and where, upon examination of the information available to the court, the impugned administrative act appears prima facie unlawful. Since the enactment of the Administrative Procedure Law, the available relevant interim measures have been either a court’s ruling that would replace the requested administrative act or action by a public authority, or a court decision ordering the relevant institution to perform or refrain from a certain action, within a set time limit (section 196).