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Verdict Only 4.5 square meters small prison cell is inhumane
Karlsruhe (jur). A prison cell measuring only 4.5 square meters in size is far too small for the permanent imprisonment of a prisoner and violates its human dignity. If the prison administration is assuming a larger detention room, courts have to clarify the size of the detention room, the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe ruled in a decision of March 22, 2016 (ref .: 2 BvR 566/12). Otherwise, the fundamental right of the prisoner to effective legal protection would also be violated.
Thus, a prisoner was right, who served his life imprisonment in the prison (JVA) Butzbach. In March 2014, he was moved for organizational reasons in a so-called "hose cell".
Picture: mik38 -photolia According to the prisoner, this was only 4.49 square meters small. This cell size was a violation of human dignity for permanent housing. The bed accommodated a bed, a table and a chair. It was an impertinence, that even the toilet was in the small room.
When the inmate applied for a transfer to a larger prison, he was transferred to a larger prison on April 14, 2014.
The prison did not violate human dignity, according to the JVA before the district court. First, the cell is a little over six square meters. Second, the detainee was not permanently housed. He is now in a larger prison. He also works in the detention center on weekdays and is not in his cell for twelve hours. Only on the weekend he would have to stay there for 20 to 23 hours. The prison also presented a photo of a comparable "hose cell".
After even a judge had looked at a comparable hose cell, the district court found that the cell is indeed small, but a "profound violation of fundamental rights" but not present.
The prisoner argued that the court had not scrutinized the size of his cell. The court had just looked at another "hose cell". In addition, he was only transferred to a larger cell because he had defended himself in court.
The Higher Regional Court dismissed the appeal. The photos would give a sufficient impression that the cell size is still reasonable. Also, the lack of separation of the toilet area does not constitute a violation of human dignity. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) had also designated as a guide to the size of the prison room a rule of four square meters per prisoner (Ref .: 20877/04).
The prisoner was now successful in the Federal Constitutional Court. The lower courts would have had to clarify this in a vigorous denial of the cell size and not rely on photos of comparable cells. Thus, the effective legal protection was violated. It was also not clear exactly how long the prisoner had to stay exactly in the prison on weekdays and weekends.
The judgment of the ECtHR on the size of the prison area is not transferable here, since it refers to shared custody and not to single cells. The minimum standards resulting from the European Convention on Human Rights are not "necessarily identical to the requirements of the Basic Law," according to the Karlsruhe judges.
Whether the spatial conditions of detention violate human dignity should be assessed in an overall view. The floor space and the situation of the sanitary facilities, specifically the separation of the toilet and its ventilation, must be taken into account.
The duration of the stay could also be decisive. In the case of temporary placement, it depends on whether the prisoner was able to disregard the limited period of accommodation. In the case of permanent housing, however, a prison area size of only 4.5 square meters would be incompatible with human dignity. A placement of several weeks suggests a constitutional offense. (Fle / mwo / fle)