Obstacles to prisoners visits and the prisoners’ telephone contacts violate their privacy
JUDGMENT
Lebois v. Bulgaria 19/10/2017 (no. 67482/14)
SUMMARY
Obstacles in the communications of a French prisoner in Bulgarian prisons regarding his family and friends visits and not having access to a telephone. Violation of his private and family life.
PROVISION
Article 8
PRINCIPAL FACTS
The applicant, Vincent Lebois, is a French national who was born in 1986 and lives in Sofia (Bulgaria). He spent three months in detention in Bulgaria in 2014 following his arrest for breaking into cars. The case concerned in particular his complaint about the restrictions on communication with family and friends during his detention.
Mr Lebois was arrested in Sofia on 24 January 2014 and placed under police detention. He spent the first day of his detention in a police station before being transferred to a pre-trial detention facility in Sofia. He was subsequently brought before the Sofia District Court, which decided he should remain in custody pending trial. On 17 April 2014, Mr Lebois pleaded guilty, upon agreement, and accepted to serve a sentence of three months’ imprisonment. He was released on 24 April 2014, having spent six days in Sofia Prison, as the time he had already spent in detention was deducted from the sentence.
Relying in particular on Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life and the correspondence) of the European Convention on Human Rights, Mr Lebois made a number of allegations about restrictions on access to a telephone and on visits from family or friends. He notably alleged that the detention facility staff had often not complied with the internal regulations governing detainees’ rights to receive visitors or to purchase/recharge phonecards. As a result, he had been unable to speak to his mother in France over the telephone for a period of three weeks in March/April 2014; and, on two separate occasions, his Bulgarian girlfriend and another friend were told that he had been moved to a different wing and were turned away without seeing him.
THE DECISION OF THE COURT
Violation of Article 8 – concerning the restrictions of Mr Lebois’ visits and access to a telephone
Just satisfaction: 1,000 euros (EUR) (non-pecuniary damage) and EUR 400 (costs and expenses)(echrcaselaw.com editing).
