FIFTH SECTIONCASE OF MESHTESHUG v. UKRAINE(Application no. 52826/18)      JUDGMENT STRASBOURG6 February 2020 This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision.In the case of Meshteshug v. Ukraine,The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of: Gabriele Kucsko-Stadlmayer, President, Mārtiņš Mits, Lәtif Hüseynov, judges,and Liv Tigerstedt, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,Having deliberated in private on 16 January 2020,Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:PROCEDURE1. The case originated in an application against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 27 October 2018.2. The applicant was represented by Mr O.A. Ignatov, a lawyer practising in Dnipro.3. The Ukrainian Government (“the Government”) were given notice of the application.THE FACTS4. The applicant’s details and information relevant to the application are set out in the appended table.5. The applicant complained of the inadequate conditions of his detention and of the lack of any effective remedy in domestic law.THE LAWALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLES 3 AND 13 OF THE CONVENTION6. The applicant complained of the inadequate conditions of his detention and that he had no effective remedy in this connection. He relied on Articles 3 and 13 of the Convention, which read as follows:Article 3“No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”Article 13“Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in this Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority ...”7. The Court notes that the applicant was kept in detention in poor conditions. The details of the applicant’s detention are indicated in the appended table. The Court refers to the principles established in its case‑law regarding inadequate conditions of detention (see, for instance, Muršić v. Croatia [GC], no. 7334/13, §§ 96‑101, ECHR 2016). It reiterates in particular that a serious lack of space in a prison cell weighs heavily as a factor to be taken into account for the purpose of establishing whether the detention conditions described are “degrading” from the point of view of Article 3 and may disclose a violation, both alone or taken together with other shortcomings (see Muršić, cited above, §§ 122 ‑141, and Ananyev and Others v. Russia, nos. 42525/07 and 60800/08, §§ 149‑159, 10 January 2012).8. In the leading case of Melnik v. Ukraine (no. 72286/01, 28 March 2006; for more recent case-law see Beketov v. Ukraine, no. 44436/09, 19 February 2019), the Court already found a violation in respect of issues similar to those in the present case.9. Having examined all the material submitted to it, the Court has not found any fact or argument capable of persuading it to reach a different conclusion on the admissibility and merits of these complaints. Having regard to its case-law on the subject, the Court considers that in the instant case the applicant’s conditions of detention were inadequate.10. The Court further notes that the applicant did not have at his disposal an effective remedy in respect of these complaints.11.

Article of the Convention at issue: Article 3
Outcome: violation