Last Updated on April 22, 2019 by LawEuro
Overview of the Case-law of the ECHR 2016
Prohibition of slavery and forced labour (Article 4)
Work required of detainees (Article 4 § 3 (a))
The judgment in Meier v. Switzerland[63] concerned the obligation for prisoners to perform work in prison after they have reached retirement age.
The applicant, a prisoner, complained that he had reached the age of retirement in Switzerland but was still required by law to perform work in prison. He was sanctioned for his refusal to work. The applicant relied in the Convention proceedings on Article 4 of the Convention.
The Court found that Article 4 had not been breached. This was the first time that the Court had had to address a complaint of this nature. In reaching its conclusion it had particular regard to whether or not there existed a trend in the Contracting Parties in favour of the acknowledgment of the applicant’s claim. Its reasoning was also based on the acceptability of the response given to the applicant’s complaint by the domestic courts. Furthermore, as in earlier cases concerning Article 4 (see Stummer v. Austria[64], and the cases cited therein), the Court drew on the definition given by the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 29 as regards the notion of forced or compulsory labour, namely “work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily”.
A key consideration for the Court was to ascertain whether the work which the applicant had to perform was in effect “work required to be done in the ordinary course of detention” within the meaning of paragraph 3 (a) of Article 4 of the Convention, in which case it could not be considered to be “forced or compulsory labour” within the meaning of paragraph 2 of that Article.
The Court noted among other things that
(i) the aim of the obligation was to offset the harmful effects of long-term imprisonment by providing a structure to a prisoner’s daily life;
(ii) the nature of the work to be performed was adapted to the age and health of the prisoner, and the work required of the applicant duly took account of his age and physical capacity to perform it;
(iii) the applicant was paid for the work;
(iv) a wide margin of appreciation should be accorded to the respondent State in this area, notwithstanding the fact that the European Prison Rules could be interpreted in the sense that prisoners of retirement age should be exempted from the obligation to work.
For the above principal reasons the Court found that the work requirement was covered by Article 4 § 3 (a) and could not be considered “forced or compulsory labour”.
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63. Meier v. Switzerland, no. 10109/14, 9 February 2016.
64. Stummer v. Austria [GC], no. 37452/02, ECHR 2011.
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