Last Updated on April 30, 2020 by LawEuro
SECOND SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 48303/16
Henrikas DAKTARAS
against Lithuania
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 28 January 2020 as a Committee composed of:
Ivana Jelić, President,
Egidijus Kūris,
Darian Pavli, judges,
and Hasan Bakırcı, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 12 August 2016,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant,
Having regard to the declaration submitted by the respondent Government on 27 September 2019 requesting the Court to partly strike the application out of the list of cases,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
1. The applicant, Mr HenrikasDaktaras, is a Lithuanian national, who was born in 1957 and is currently serving a life sentence in Pravieniškės Correctional Institution. He was represented before the Court by Mr V. Sirvydis, a lawyer practising in Kaunas.
2. The Lithuanian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agents, Ms L. Urbaitė and Ms K. Bubnytė-Širmenė.
A. The circumstances of the case
3. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
4. In 2016 the applicant asked the administration of Lukiškės Prison, where he was serving his sentence at that time, to be taken to an external hospital in order to see a dentist, or for a dentist to come to that prison, so that the applicant could get dental implants. He explained that the prison doctor was able to repair teeth, but did not put in implants. The applicant stated that he was prepared to pay for the services of the dentist. The prison administration refused the applicant’s request. He then lodged an appeal with the Prison Department, but was unsuccessful.
5. By a decision of 6 February 2017 the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court granted a further appeal lodged by the applicant. Relying on, inter alia, the Court’s judgment in V.D. v. Romania (no. 7078/02, 16 February 2010), the administrative court held that the Lukiškės Prison administration and the Prison Department had given only formulaic replies, without examining whether the applicant’s condition required dental implants. The administrative court ordered the Lukiškės Prison administration to make sure that the applicant’s medical condition was properly examined and, if necessary, to provide him with the opportunity to obtain the services of a dentist in order that he could obtain dental implants.
6. According to the Government, on 18 May 2018 the applicant was transferred from Lukiškės Prison to Pravieniškės Correctional Institution. Following his transfer from Lukiškės Prison, the applicant submitted an amended complaint before the administrative courts, requesting that the court impose an obligation on the Pravieniškės Correctional Institution to ensure the proper examination of his medical condition and, where necessary, to ensure the opportunity for him to obtain dental implants.
7. At a certain point, the applicant sued both Lukiškės Prison and Pravieniškės Correctional Institution, asking that he be provided with dental care in prison. He also claimed damages for the prisons’ failure to provide such dental care.
8. In a decision of 28 May 2019 the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court noted that at the court hearing the applicant had withdrawn his claim against the Pravieniškės Correctional Institution, acknowledging that he was being provided with medical services of a dentist and other necessary medical specialists. The applicant’s withdrawal of his claim had been supported by medical documents from his file which showed that in March 2019 he had been taken to a private medical clinic in Kaunas where he had been provided with a consultation for dental implantation. Accordingly, the court discontinued the administrative proceedings regarding that part of the applicant’s claim.
9. As to the second part of the applicant’s claim, namely, that he had sustained damage because of the manner in which the Lukiškės Prison administration had previously dealt with his request for dental care, the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court established that as of 2010 the applicant had regularly consulted and been treated by a dentist at the Lukiškės Prison. In January and April 2016 he had had consultations regarding dental prosthetics and implants, and in November 2016 and April 2017 he had been taken to the Vilnius University dental clinic in Vilnius where dentists had checked his dental health and prepared a plan for how he should be receive treatment at the Lukiškės Prison, since the law did not allow external dentists to provide such services inside Lukiškės Prison.
10. In the light of the above, the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court concluded that free dental services had been provided to the applicant while he had been held at Lukiškės Prison. It followed that the applicant’s complaint of that prison authority’s failure to act, allegedly by refusing to provide dental prosthetics services to the applicant, was to be dismissed as unfounded. Following on from that decision, the court determined that the applicant’s claim for non-pecuniary damage was also to be rejected.
11. The applicant appealed.
12. By a ruling of 23 October 2019 the Supreme Administrative Court left the lower court’s decision unchanged. The Supreme Administrative Court relied on the Court’s judgment in Khudobin v. Russia (no. 59696/00, § 93, ECHR 2006‑XII (extracts)) to the effect that the medical assistance available in prison hospitals may not always be at the same level as in the best medical institutions for the general public. Nevertheless, the State must ensure that the health and well-being of detainees are adequately secured by, among other things, providing them with the requisite medical assistance. As regards the applicant’s situation, the Supreme Administrative Court pointed out that no unlawful actions had been established on the part of the Lukiškės Prison administration when dealing with the applicant’s request for dental care. Moreover, the applicant had failed to prove that the actions of the prison administration had caused him any damage. It followed that the Lukiškės Prison administration could not be held liable.
B. Relevant domestic law and practice
13. The relevant law regarding life prisoners and the possibility of a life sentence being changed to a fixed term sentence is restated in Dardanskis and Others ((dec.), no. 74452/13, §§ 5-12, 18 June 2019).
14. In case no. T-81-654/2019, decided on 4 July 2019, the Vilnius Regional Court granted a proposal by the Vilnius Correctional Institution that the life sentence of R.B. – who in 1991 had been sentenced to capital punishment, a sentence which had subsequently been commuted to life imprisonment – be reduced to a fixed-term sentence of five years, to be served in a correctional home (pataisosnamuose). The prosecutor did not object to the reduction in R.B.’s sentence as such, but argued that he should be given eight years of imprisonment. On the basis of the documents presented by the correctional institution, the court noted that R.B. had reformed: he had fully admitted his guilt and regretted having committed the crime; he had not been given any disciplinary penalties (galiojančiųnuobaudųneturi); and as of 2008 he had been working as a carpenter in a State-owned company, had no outstanding claims owing to the victim, was in regular communication with his family members, had been actively taking part in social rehabilitation programmes, and had not shown a tendency to reoffend.
15. In case no. T-88-919/2019, decided on 18 July 2019, the Kaunas Regional Court rejected an objection by the prosecutor and granted a proposal by the Pravieniškės Correctional Institution that the life sentence of A.V. – who had been sentenced to capital punishment in 1994, which had subsequently been commuted to life imprisonment – be reduced to a fixed-term sentence of eight years’ imprisonment, to be served in a correctional home. In reaching that decision, the court relied on documents provided by the correctional institution, showing that A.V. had repented: he had taken full responsibility for his actions in committing the crime; there was a low risk of him reoffending; he had social skills and communicated with his spouse; he had not refused work and was employed in the canteen of the correctional institution, and he had also actively taken part in social rehabilitation programmes.
16. In case no. 1S-210-449/2019, decided on 20 August 2019, the Court of Appeal rejected a complaint by the prosecutor and upheld a ruling by the Vilnius Regional Court of 29 July 2019, by which that court had commuted V.R.’s life sentence to eight years’ deprivation of liberty, to be served in a correctional home. As with the two previous cases (see paragraphs 14 and 15 above), the regional court reached that verdict having established, on the basis of V.R.’s prison file, that V.R. had reformed.
COMPLAINTS
17. The applicant complained under Article 3 of the Convention that his life sentence was not reducible.
The applicant further complained of a lack of proper medical care in prison.
THE LAW
18. Notice of the applicant’s complaints was given to the Government under Article 3 of the Convention, which reads as follows:
“No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
A. Complaint regarding life imprisonment
1. The parties’ submissions
19. The Government contended that given the recent changes in the Lithuanian legal system, as acknowledged by the Court in Dardanskis and Others ((dec.), no. 74452/13, 18 June 2019), the matter that gave rise to the applicant’s complaint that his life sentence was not reducible could be considered to have been resolved. They also stated that several applications by life prisoners for reductions in their sentences had already been granted by the domestic courts, with their life imprisonment sentences being replaced by fixed-term sentences (the Government referred to the case-law set out in paragraphs 14-16 above).
20. The applicant briefly asserted that the changes in the domestic legislation had not altered his situation, essentially challenging the lawfulness of his initial sentencing to life imprisonment, which he saw as wrongful and arbitrary.
2. The Court’s assessment
21. The Court refers to its decision in Dardanskis and Others (cited above, §§ 22-32), where it established that the life sentence commutation procedure and its requirements, as very recently adopted by the Lithuanian authorities in order to rectify the situation which the Court had criticised in its judgment of Matiošaitis and Others v. Lithuania (no. 22662/13 and 7 others, 23 May 2017), constituted an adequate and sufficient remedy for those applicants’ complaint under Article 3 of the Convention. In that decision the Court also noted that it looked forward to the proper implementation of that remedy in practice. As demonstrated by the Government, to date there have been at least three cases in which a prisoner’s sentence has been changed by the domestic courts from life imprisonment to a fixed-term sentence (see paragraphs 14-16 above).
22. In the light of the foregoing considerations the Court finds that the matter giving rise to this complaint can therefore now be considered to be “resolved” within the meaning of Article 37 § 1 (b). Finally, no particular reason relating to respect for human rights as defined in the Convention requires the Court to continue its examination of this complaint under Article 37 § 1 in fine.
Accordingly, this part of the application should be struck out of the Court’s list of cases.
B. Complaint regarding dental care in prison
1. The parties’ submissions
23. The Government referred to the domestic courts’ decisions which dismissed the applicant’s complaint that he had sustained damage as a result of an alleged failure to provide him with proper dental care while in Lukiškės Prison. They also commented that the applicant was currently receiving the necessary dental care in a medical institution of his own choice.
24. The applicant, although asked by the Court on 24 July 2019 and then on 29 August 2019 to provide information regarding the outcome of his litigation regarding his dental care, failed to respond in a timely manner.
2. The Court’s assessment
25. The Court firstly notes that, by its final decision of 23 October 2019, the Supreme Administrative Court dismissed the applicant’s complaint that he had not been provided with proper dental care while held at Lukiškės Prison and that he had consequently sustained damage (see paragraph 12 above). It also observes that during the administrative court proceedings the applicant withdrew his claim against the State institutions for the provision of proper dental care (see paragraph 8 above). There is nothing in those court decisions that would raise any doubts as to their objectivity. The applicant, although asked by the Court to provide more recent information regarding litigation about his dental care in prison, failed to furnish it as requested. That being so, the Court cannot but conclude that this part of the application is manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention and, therefore, must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 § 4.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases, in accordance with Article 37 § 1 (b) of the Convention, in so far as it relates to the complaint under Article 3 of the Convention about the applicant’s life imprisonment;
Declares the remainder of the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 20 February 2020.
Hasan Bakırcı Ivana Jelić
Deputy Registrar President
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