Crackdown after failed coup and prison conditions in Romania and Hungary fuel spike in human rights court applications

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s response to the attempted coup in Turkey along with poor conditions in prisons in Hungary and Romania have driven a 23% year-on-year rise in the number of applications to the European court of human rights.

In its annual report, the court noted a “very large number of applications” from Turkey in late 2016 after the attempt to topple Erdoğan, contributing to the biggest increase in applications in five years.

Turkey declared a state of emergency in July and gave notice of a derogation under article 15 of the European convention on human rights. Such a move releases a government of its obligations to uphold some, but not all, human rights, when a state is faced with a public emergency that threatens “the life of the nation”.

The other two signatory states to fuel the large increase in applications to the ECHR, Romania and Hungary, have struggled with overpopulation in their prisons for a number of years, but the statistics appear to suggest the situation is worsening.

In a speech last week, the ECHR’s president, Guido Raimondi, noted that there had been a 108% rise in applications from Romania and a 95% increase in cases from Hungary.



“In both cases, these cases mainly concern ... conditions of detention. While these are matters of priority, since they fall within the scope of article 3 of the convention, which prohibits inhuman and degrading treatment, they are also repetitive cases, which reflect systemic or structural difficulties and require solutions to be found internally,” he said.

“We all know that there are no immediate and quick fixes to respond to these situations, neither in the country concerned, for which this implies significant political and budgetary efforts, nor in Strasbourg.”

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In Romania, the government has proposed pardoning thousands of prisoners in order to alleviate the situation in its jails. However, the ruling Social Democratic party has been accused of planning to use the proposed emergency ordinance as a vehicle for aiding the release of allies.

Liviu Dragnea, the PSD leader, had reportedly aspired to become prime minister, but received a suspended sentence last April for electoral fraud. He is due to face trial this month in a separate criminal case relating to an alleged abuse of power.

Thousands of protesters massed in Bucharest’s University Square earlier this month claiming that the move would set back anti-corruption efforts and calling the PSD “the red plague”.

Last week, the European commission said the change could present a potential blow to Romania’s long fight against corruption.

It would primarily affect people serving sentences of less than five years or on suspended sentences, except those convicted of sexual or violent crimes. Prisoners over 60, pregnant women and those with young children would have their sentences halved.

The ECHR delivered 993 judgments in 2016. The Council of Europe member states with the highest number of judgments finding at least one violation of the convention in 2016 were Russia (222 judgments), Turkey (77), Romania (71), Ukraine (70), Greece (41) and Hungary (40).

The highest number of violations in 2016 related to the right to liberty and security (286), inhuman or degrading treatment (193) and the right to a fair trial.

The court delivered 14 judgments last year concerning the UK. Of these, seven found at least one violation of the convention.