Immigrants’ stay in dirty cells with worn beds without toilet constitutes humiliating treatment
JUDGMENT
S.F. and others v. Bulgaria 7.12.2017 (no. 8138/16)
SUMMARY
Iraqi immigrants and their way to Western Europe. Detention conditions. Dirty cell, worn beds, garbage, no toilet. Condemnation for inhuman and degrading treatment.
PROVISION
Article 3
PRINCIPAL FACTS
The case concerned a complaint brought by an Iraqi family about the conditions in which they had been kept in immigration detention for a few days when trying to cross Bulgaria on their way to Western Europe in 2015. They now live in Switzerland, where they were granted asylum in July 2017.
In August 2015 the applicants, an Iraqi couple and their three sons, who had fled Iraq, tried to pass covertly through Bulgaria in order to seek international protection in Western Europe. They were however intercepted near the Bulgarian-Serbian border on 17 August and arrested because they had not entered the country lawfully. They were then kept in immigration detention in a short-term holding facility in Vidin pending their transfer on 19 August to a bigger immigration detention facility in Sofia. On 31 August 2015 they settled in an open facility for asylum-seekers. Shortly afterwards, they left this facility and made their way to Switzerland.
Relying on Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention, the applicants complained in particular about the conditions in which the three minors – then aged 16, 11 and one and a half years – had been kept in the detention facility in Vidin. Submitting a video recording, the applicants alleged in particular that the cell in which they had been held had been extremely run-down, with dirty and worn out bunk beds, mattresses and bed linen as well as litter and damp cardboard on the floor; and that, as there had been no toilet in the cell, they had had to urinate on the floor. They also complained that the authorities had failed to provide them with food and drink for the first 24 hours of their custody and that the baby bottle and milk of the youngest child had been taken away upon their arrival at the facility and only given to the mother 19 hours later.
THE DECISION OF THE COURT
Violation of Article 3 (inhuman and degrading treatment) – in respect of the three children (Y.F., S.F. and A.F.)
Just satisfaction: 600 euros (EUR) each to Y.F., S.F. and A.F. (non-pecuniary damage), and EUR 1,000 to the applicants jointly (costs and expenses)(echrcaselaw.com editing).
