The applicant, Mr Józef Szyc, is a Polish citizen who was born in 1950 and is currently detained in Biała Podlaska Prison. The Polish Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr J. Wołąsiewicz of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
On 21 November 1990 the applicant was imprisoned in Biała Podlaska Prison. Subsequently, he was many times transferred between prisons in Włodawa, Biała Podlaska, Siedlce, Kamińsk and Chełm.
On 23 July 2009 the applicant was released from Chełm Prison as he had been granted a leave on compassionate grounds.
On 20 July 2010 the applicant resumed serving his prison sentence. He is currently detained in Biała Podlaska Prison.
The applicant submitted that practically all prisons in which he had been detained from 1999 or 2000 onwards had been overcrowded. By way of an example, he submitted that in June 2008 he had been detained in a prison cell with a living space of approx. 1 m² per inmate. He moreover asserted that on one occasion, for a period of one week, he was forced to sleep on a mattress on the cell floor. The overcrowding had resulted in tension and conflict among the detainees as well as in the progressive deterioration of the prison’s sanitary conditions.
The applicant further submitted that from November 1995 and over the next 13 years, he had been detained together with smokers, despite his being a non-smoker. The cells in which he had been detained had no proper ventilation.
As regards the applicant’s detention in Włodawa Prison, the Government pointed out that prior to 2 January 1999 the prison authorities had not been storing information as to the exact number of prisoners detained in each cell on specific dates. They further submitted that, to their general knowledge, the problem of overcrowding had not existed in Włodawa Prison prior to 1999. The Government acknowledged that from January 1999 until May 2003 the applicant had been temporarily placed in cells with a living space ranging from 2.5 m2 to 3.49 m2 per prisoner. The total time in which the applicant was imprisoned in cells of less than 3 m² per prisoner amounted to at least 145 days.
The Government explained that during his entire stay in Włodawa Prison the applicant had been detained only in non-smoking cells.
As for the applicant’s detention in prisons in Chełm and in Siedlce, the Government acknowledged that both these penitentiary centres had been permanently overcrowded at the relevant time. The applicant had been imprisoned in cells of less than 3 m² per prisoner for an overall period of 835 days. On one occasion, due to lack of space, the applicant was required to sleep on a double mattress on the cell floor for nine days. During an unspecified time the applicant was detained together with smokers, but he never complained to the authorities about this fact.
In Biała Podlaska Prison the applicant was incarcerated in cells with a living space ranging from 2 m2 to 4.1 m2 per prisoner. The total period during which he was detained in cells of less than 3 m² per prisoner amounted to 744 days. The Government explained that in Biała Podlaska Prison the applicant had been serving his sentence in a semi-open ward where cells remained open during daytime. Moreover, from November 2006 to August 2007 he had been allowed to take a bath on a daily basis. Lastly, they submitted that, on three occasions, the applicant had been granted a temporary, accompanied release from prison. He was also granted leave to attend his father’s funeral without being accompanied by a prison officer.
More recently, the applicant submitted that the living conditions in Biała Podlaska Prison were inadequate and that he was detained together with four other inmates in cell no. 139 which was designed for three persons.
The applicant informed the Court that on unspecified dates in 2003 and 2004 he brought several civil actions against prisons in Włodawa, Siedlce and Chełm for the infringement of his personal rights. He briefly informed the Court that his claims had been unsuccessful but failed to provide details about the exact course or the outcome of any of the proceedings.
The Government submitted that the applicant’s civil action against Włodawa Prison had been dismissed by a decision of the first-instance court against which the applicant did not appeal. Three other civil actions which the applicant had attempted to institute before the Siedlce Regional Court (Sąd Okręgowy) were all rejected for failure to comply with the prescribed procedural requirements.
The Government further submitted that the applicant had instituted another civil action before the Lublin Regional Court (Sąd Okręgowy). These proceedings were currently pending. The applicant did not contest the foregoing statements.
A detailed description of the relevant domestic law and practice concerning general rules governing conditions of detention in Poland and domestic remedies available to detainees alleging that the conditions of their detention were inadequate are set out in the Court’s pilot judgments given in the cases of Orchowski v. Poland (no. 17885/04) and Norbert Sikorski v. Poland (no. 17599/05) on 22 October 2009 (see §§ 75-85 and §§ 45-88 respectively). More recent developments are described in the Court’s decision in the case of Łatak v. Poland (no. 52070/08) on 12 October 2010 (see §§ 25-54).