TrustHLT/LaCour huggingface dataset:
GR1 (Government): In the report of 2012 concerning the issue of aging prison population in the United States, Human Rights Watch noted that continued imprisonment of elderly offenders does not fulfill the principal purpose of punishment such as retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, and rehabilitation.
GR1 (Government): With respect to the purpose of retribution, the government considers that in order to achieve this purpose, it would be sufficient to sentence an elderly criminal to a fixed term of imprisonment.
GR1 (Government): As regard the purpose of incapacitation and deterrence, the government believes that in spite of the fact that accountability for a crime is an indispensable component of a just criminal justice system and that extremely serious crimes warrant long prison sentences, at the time passed and most of elderly prisoners become physically incapacitated and mentally impaired, they threaten society and public safety and the justification for their continued imprisonment diminishes.
GR1 (Government): Continued imprisonment has very small deterrent impact on the older offender who, by virtue of age and infirmity, already poses a negligible threat of reoffending.
GR1 (Government): Finally, further imprisonment of elderly offenders is unlikely to advance their rehabilitation and reintegration into society.
GR1 (Government): At the same time, human rights law requires that the imprisonment should not be purely retributory and that efforts should be made in order to rehabilitate prisoners.
GR1 (Government): After providing that, all persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human persons.
GR1 (Government): The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in Article 10 further mandates that the penitentiary system shall comprise treatment of prisoners, the essential aim of which shall be their reformation and social rehabilitation.
GR1 (Government): Therefore it is hard to see how the continued imprisonment of elderly could meaningfully serve any of the purposes for which their sentence were originally imposed.
GR1 (Government): What is more, disproportionately lengthy prison terms may constitute arbitrary deprivations of liberty in violation of the rights to liberty provided for by Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
GR1 (Government): In a number of cases challenging life sentences, the European Court of Human Rights has recognized that sentences which are arbitrary or disproportionately lengthy may violate Article 5 of the Convention.
GR1 (Government): They may also constitute cruel and inhumane punishment.
GR1 (Government): Thus Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides that no one shall be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
GR1 (Government): In turn, the European Court of Human Rights has recognized that disproportionality severe sentences can be incompatible with the prohibition of inhuman punishment envisaged in Article 3 of the Convention.
GR1 (Government): The Court ruled that life sentences without the possibility of review have been deemed to constitute cruel or inhuman treatment.
GR1 (Government): In 2013, in the case of Winter and others versus United Kingdom, this Court found that human dignity requires for prisoners to have a hope of release.
GR1 (Government): The Court held that some mechanism needs to be in place for reviewing the sentence at least every 25 years.
GR1 (Government): Applying the above positions, the government believed that imposition of life imprisonment on persons who are over 65 years old would put them into an equal position with younger persons who, according to Section 5 of Article 79 of the Russian Criminal Court, may count on release after 25 years of imprisonment.
GR1 (Government): However, for defendants who are older than 65 years, such prospects can be fulfilled only after they reach 90 years, which, taking into account their life expectancy rates, makes it almost unachievable.
GR1 (Government): In light of the above, the government is convinced that exemption of certain groups from life imprisonment is fully reasonable and substantiated.
GR1 (Government): Besides, the government considered that the amendment of Article 57 of the Criminal Court of the Russian Federation to allow application of life imprisonment to minors, women, and elderly men will not affect the applicant's personal situation and by no means would restore their allegedly violated rights.
GR1 (Government): In this regard, the government would like to note that, according to the updated statistical data presented by the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia as of March 1, 2016, out of almost 600,000 of inmates serving their sentence in the form of imprisonment, only about 42,000 are female and slightly more than 1,500 are minors.
GR1 (Government): Moreover, only 1,957 persons out of that total number have been serving a sentence in the form of life imprisonment.
GR1 (Government): Besides, given the average lifetime for men in Russia, which is only 59 according to the recent World Health Organization data, it is highly unlikely that there will be any criminal over 65 years old who can potentially be sentenced to life imprisonment.
GR1 (Government): Furthermore, according to various researches, even in those countries where life imprisonment is imposed on women, the number of females serving life in sentence is extremely low in comparison to men.
GR1 (Government): Therefore, it is manifestly unfeasible from the economical standpoint to alter the legislation and to introduce life imprisonment to other very limited groups of criminals when they are so small in numbers and so much additional work is required to accommodate them.
GR1 (Government): While available, ordinary imprisonment may be considered sufficient to ensure that all the purposes of punishment are fulfilled in respect of them.
GR1 (Government): Lastly, as regards another proposal of the applicants to consider gender and age as second instances mitigating punishment, the government are convinced that it will not change the situation but will only shift the burden of application of life imprisonment to certain groups of criminals from legislators to judges.
GR1 (Government): However, the criteria for the deciding on whether life imprisonment should be applied to a particular criminal will not change at all and will remain in practice as discriminatory as in the applicants' opinion they currently are.
GR1 (Government): In this context, the government would like to reiterate that the applicants seek a change in the legislation in abstracta and the examination of their proposal should be considered by the domestic legislative bodies and not by this court.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Thank you very much Mr. Matyushkin.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): I thank the parties for their interventions.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Now I turn to my colleagues in order to invite them to put to the parties the questions they may wish to ask.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): I see Judge Mārtiņš, please.
Mārtiņš Mits (Judge): Thank you, Mr. President.
Mārtiņš Mits (Judge): In the context of differential treatment on the basis of gender, so male convicts compared to female convicts, both parties address one of the possible scenarios where the violation of Article 14 in conjunction with Article 5 may be established.
Mārtiņš Mits (Judge): And the question for both parties will be in this context.
Mārtiņš Mits (Judge): So the government in their observations in paragraph 29 states that, I quote, such finding of a violation would call for worsening of the situation of a great mess of other people not involved in the proceedings before the court.
Mārtiņš Mits (Judge): May I kindly ask to explain how and why the situation of other people would necessarily be made worse and whether the government doesn't see a way of complying with such a possible ruling without worsening the situation of other people in line with the European Convention of Human Rights.
Mārtiņš Mits (Judge): As to the applicants, applicants in their observations in paragraphs 52, 53, refer to the individualization of punishment as the best solution and a general principle in sentencing policy that should be applied.
Mārtiņš Mits (Judge): And I would kindly ask to clarify whether the applicants mean the characteristics which are listed in Article 60 of the Russian Criminal Code, namely, which have to be taken into account when the punishment is inflicted, namely the convict's personality, influence on the rehabilitation and impact on living conditions of the convict's family, or you mean extension of the same article to female offenders or maybe both.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Thank you very much, Judge Mits.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Now it's Judge Pinto de Albuquerque, please.
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): My question is addressed to the government, but of course the applicants can also take a position on this question.
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): In fact, it's a group of three different points that I would like to raise.
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): There is scientific evidence that demonstrates that the suicide rate and the insanity rate among prisoners sentenced for life is higher than among prisoners sentenced for prison terms of fixed duration, and much higher among men than among women.
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): Male prisoners sentenced for life tend to commit suicide or become insane more often than women sentenced for life, and much more often than people in freedom.
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): Male offenders between 18 and 65 commit more often suicide and become more often insane than women, minors and seniors.
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): And this occurs especially when they are serving life or indeterminate prison terms.
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): My question to the government, do you have any statistical data in Russia to contradict this evidence?
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): Second question, is there any scientific evidence in Russia of a correlation between the sex and age of the offender and the gravity of the offense?
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): Can you prove to this court that men, and particularly men aged between 18 and 65, commit more serious crimes than women offenders or male offenders under 18 or male offenders over 65?
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): Final question, is there any scientific evidence, statistical evidence in Russia of a correlation between life imprisonment and lower crime rates, or at least lower violent crime rates?
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): Can you prove to this court that this Russian life imprisonment sentencing policy has produced lower crime rates and particularly lower violent crime rates?
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): Can you prove to this court that the prohibition of life sentence to female, juvenile and senior offenders has caused lower crime rates among the Russian female, juvenile and senior population?
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Thank you very much, Judge Pinto de Albuquerque.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): And now, Judge López Guerra, please.
Luis López Guerra (Judge): Just a brief question to the government.
Luis López Guerra (Judge): The government states in its observation that the Russian criminal code provides for only 19 types of crimes punishable by life imprisonment.
Luis López Guerra (Judge): And then the government states that life imprisonment is not imposed in a person automatically for the commission of the above crimes.
Luis López Guerra (Judge): I think I understand it means that there is the life imprisonment is not mandatory.
Luis López Guerra (Judge): It's not mandatory in any of these 19 cases.
Luis López Guerra (Judge): I would like the government to confirm this statement if really this is the case.
Luis López Guerra (Judge): I think it's an important point.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Thank you very much, Judge López Guerra.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): If there are no more questions, now the court...
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): I'm sorry, Judge Dedov, please.
Dmitry Dedov (Judge): Thank you. I would like to ask the applicants to clarify to the court what kind of measures
Dmitry Dedov (Judge): the authorities would have to implement to restore the rights of the applicants, I would say to avoid discrimination in case we find a violation of Article 14 in conjunction with Article 5 of the convention. Thank you.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Thank you very much judge Dedov. Judge Nußberger please.
Angelika Nußberger (Judge): Just a short question.
Angelika Nußberger (Judge): We have heard that the conditions for life prisoners are much worse than for others.
Angelika Nußberger (Judge): And I just would like to understand better why is it not only the time that is different, but also the conditions?
Angelika Nußberger (Judge): Because that means that for women, you have basically always different conditions.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Now the court will rise for 10 minutes, following which the parties will return for the second round of short pleadings to respond to the submissions in the first round to the judges' questions.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): The hearing is now resumed and I call the applicants now.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Mrs. Davidyan.
AP2 (Applicant): Honorable judges, I would like to thank you for the questions which raise very important issues and help us to elaborate the case.
AP2 (Applicant): I would like to start with a remark regarding the government's arguments.
AP2 (Applicant): And in terms of margin of appreciation to which the government has been referring, I would like to note that in this particular issue, the margin of appreciation of the government would be significantly narrower than we could see, for example, in the case of Stak versus UK.
AP2 (Applicant): First of all, the issue is not within the economical or social welfare sphere.
AP2 (Applicant): And the issue itself questions the life of life prisoners.
AP2 (Applicant): So we believe that the reasons for differentiation and treatment should be extremely more weighty.
AP2 (Applicant): And in this case, the positive discrimination cannot be used because women are not in unfavorable position in this case and unequal to use the positive discrimination to equalize their position.
AP2 (Applicant): The only legitimate aid that the government provided was humanism that was applied to women and minors and seniors.
AP2 (Applicant): So we believe that humanist cannot be a justification for different in treatment.
AP2 (Applicant): Moreover, that should be the approach that should be applied to all people without any discrimination.
AP2 (Applicant): Regarding the question about statistics of the government, we would like to support this question because we were also not able to find any available statistics that would have shown some correlative figures rather than absolute figures.
AP2 (Applicant): We believe that absolute figures do not show the ratio of grave violations that are being committed by men and women.
AP2 (Applicant): And therefore, we are not able to comment on this issue, not being able to operate with the not absolute but correlative numbers.
AP2 (Applicant): In terms of question about mitigating circumstances that can be taken into account while imposing a sentence, we absolutely support the approach of individualization of punishment.
AP2 (Applicant): We in no way believe that worsening of situation of women and minors and seniors could resolve the issue.
AP2 (Applicant): We believe that individualization of punishment is an absolute standard that should be followed by the government.
AP2 (Applicant): And we would like to note that in Russian law, the list of mitigating circumstances is open, which means that anything can be taken into account, starting with the personality of the convict and finishing with their family situation and their obligations to raise their children and things like that.
AP2 (Applicant): I would like to also thank for the question about conditions of detention.
AP2 (Applicant): And we support this question because the court has already found on many occasions that conditions of the detention should not be part of the punishment.
AP2 (Applicant): However, it is clear that the specific conditions of detention of life prisoners are exactly part of the detention because they're used directly by law, regardless of anything except for the sentence itself.
AP2 (Applicant): We would like to also note that, once again, lowering of standards that are being applied to all the convicts is unacceptable.
AP2 (Applicant): And we would like to refer to the amicus curiae submitted by Equal Rights, who brilliantly explained this point.
AP2 (Applicant): And in terms of measures which should be taken to avoid discrimination, we would like to note that there are several avenues, and it is completely up to the government which avenue to take.
AP2 (Applicant): We believe that there's definitely more than one available avenue.
AP2 (Applicant): And I would like to also mention that the government, yes, at this point, we cannot claim that there is a consensus among European countries about abolition of life sentence.
AP2 (Applicant): However, the question is, does there have to be a consensus at this point?
AP2 (Applicant): 10 European countries have already abolished a life sentence without any consensus.
AP2 (Applicant): And so did 20 other countries outside of Europe.
AP2 (Applicant): Moreover, Russia has already abolished life sentence for women, as well as minors and seniors.
AP2 (Applicant): And Russian government, in their memorandum, stated that one of the reasons for the abolition are the principles of justice and humanism that are of utmost importance in a democratic legal state.
AP2 (Applicant): And I would like to quote that the government noted, humanism is the concept of high moral standards produced during the evolution of the mankind, social meaning of which consists in recognition of a person, his or her interest, dignity and honor as a superior value protected by the state and the society.
AP2 (Applicant): We praise and support with all our hearts this reasoning and approach and believe that humanism is the engine of the development of civilization.
AP2 (Applicant): And we are calling upon the government to extend the application of this humanitarian policy on all people in its jurisdiction without any exclusions.
AP2 (Applicant): We believe that Russia doesn't have to wait for other countries to press it to use the humanitarian approach.
AP2 (Applicant): It already uses this approach.
AP2 (Applicant): And it is a powerful enough country to lead the high moral standards and promote them among others.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Thank you very much Mrs. Davidyan and Mr. Matyushkin, please.
GR1 (Government): Respectable judges, answering the first question, the question of Honorable Judge Meads, I should tell that it's just, from my point of view, the problem of misinterpretation, misunderstanding.
GR1 (Government): We just want to say that changing of practice in life imprisonment to spread the life imprisonment to minors, these vulnerable groups of persons, will worsen their status and will spread their population in prison.
GR1 (Government): Answering the question of Judge Albuquerque, the first question, I should tell that we took the data from a report of World Health Organization, which provides that the women and young people commit more often suicide and suffer from different mental diseases being in prison, more often than men.
GR1 (Government): And answering the second question of Judge Albuquerque, I should answer that the statistic which we provide that the prison population of women in Russia is just 6.5% from all prison population
GR1 (Government): itself shows the correlation between the men and women.
GR1 (Government): I told you today, Hrin, that by our statistic, the crimes which women commit compared to men are not so hard and not so offensive.
GR1 (Government): And answering the third question, I should tell that for now we do not have data.
GR1 (Government): And if we will have, if we will find the statistical data later, we definitely provide this court with this data.
GR1 (Government): Answering the question of Honorable Judge Guerra, I should tell that life imprisonment by Russian law and court practice of Russian judges are not mandatory.
GR1 (Government): And courts are taking in consideration all circumstances of case and the person which commit the crime.
GR1 (Government): And the punishment should be just not life imprisonment, but some definite term.
GR1 (Government): It's up to the judge.
GR1 (Government): And judges have split marginal position in these cases.
GR1 (Government): And finally, I want to refer some statement which provided us today the Honorable Representatives of Applicants.
GR1 (Government): I would like to note that the applicants misinterpreted the Russian government's position with respect to references to Article 3 of the Convention.
GR1 (Government): The government only noted that the issue of life imprisonment was considered by the court mainly from the standpoint of Article 3 of the Convention.
GR1 (Government): And life imprisonment has been found to be in compliance with the Convention, provided that the legislation envisages for a possibility of parole.
GR1 (Government): And Russian criminal court provides for such a possibility more than the majority of the countries still have in their criminal law such punishment as life imprisonment.
GR1 (Government): Therefore, taking into account the above said and in absence of European consensus of the issue of life imprisonment, the Russian Federation has no grounds to abolish such type of punishment.
GR1 (Government): And finally, I should tell that the condition of detention itself of life prisoners are out of scope of this definite case.
GR1 (Government): It's out of scope of this procedure.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Thank you very much, Mr. Matyushkin.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): I thank the parties for their interventions and answers to the Court's questions.
Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (JudgeP): I declare open the public hearing on the admissibility and merits in the case of Al-Nashiri versus Romania.
Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (JudgeP): The application was lodged with the court on 1st June 2012 under Article 34 of the Convention by a Saudi Arabian national, Mr. Abd Al Rahim Husseyn Muhammad Al Nashiri
Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (JudgeP): Having been initially allocated to the third section of the court after the decomposition of the court sections, the application was assigned to the first section of the court, pursuant to Rule 52, Paragraph 1 of the Rules of Court.
Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (JudgeP): The case was assigned to a chamber of the first section of the court, pursuant to Rule 52, Paragraph 2.
Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (JudgeP): The application was communicated to the government on 18 September 2012 and on 26 May 2015.
Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (JudgeP): On 18 February 2013, the president of the chamber granted leave to submit written comments as third parties by virtue of Rule 44, Paragraph 3 of the Rules of Court to Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists, the Association for the Defense of Human Rights in Romania, the Helsinki Committee, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism, and Howard Kennedy LLP, acting on behalf of the so-called media groups.
Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (JudgeP): At the present hearing, the defending government are represented by their agent, Ms. Catrinel Brumar,
Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (JudgeP): Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ms. Manuela Ludușan,
Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (JudgeP): judge seconded to the agent of the government before the European Court of Human Rights, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Council.
Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (JudgeP): Ms. Alexandrina-Livia Rusu, charge of the fair deputy
Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (JudgeP): to the permanent representative of Romania to the Council of Europe.
Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (JudgeP): Mr. Victor Horia Dimitrie Constantinescu,