engleski

Impact of ECtHR Case law on Penitentiary law in Republic of Croatia

Penitentiary law has been continuously developing through international and European, mostly soft law, documents (European Prison Rules, UN Standard Minimum Rules). Significant and decisive impact on protection of fundamental rights of prisoners has European Court for Human Rights with its wealthy case law on detention conditions. Twenty years has passed since the adoption of first reform Act on the execution of prison sentence in Republic of Croatia, which introduced a new institute of executing judge and strengthened judicial protection of prisoners’ rights. Recently proposal of a new Act on the execution of prison sentence has been submitted to Croatian Parliament. Whilst, fourteen years has passed since the first judgement against Republic of Croatia before ECtHR (Cenbauer v Croatia) for inadequate detention conditions and since then ECtHR has found violation of the prisoners’ rights under Article 3 in its substantive and/or procedural aspect in number of other judgements. These violations mainly relate to problems of overcrowding, inadequate health care in prison but also effective remedy for complaints concerning the prison conditions under Article 13 ECHR. Recently, in 2016, in judgement Muršić v Croatia Grand Chamber harmonized and recapitulated its practice related to the personal space of persons deprived of their liberty in cells with several prisoners. ECtHR case law over the last ten years has significantly influenced the case law of Constitutional Court of Republic of Croatia whose activity in protecting prisoners’ rights increased considerably during this period. Taking into account all of the above author will present in the paper development of Croatian penitentiary law and assess the influence of ECtHR case law on national achievements in this field.

penitentiary law, prisoners rights, ECtHR case law

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