FIFTH SECTION      CASE OF SHCHERBAK v. UKRAINE (Application no. 81646/17)              JUDGMENT    STRASBOURG 20 December 2018   This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision.In the case of Shcherbak v. Ukraine,The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of: Síofra O’Leary, President, Mārtiņš Mits, Lado Chanturia, judges,and Liv Tigerstedt, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,Having deliberated in private on 29 November 2018,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 the date indicated in the appended table.2. The applicant was represented by Mr O.A. Ignatov, a lawyer practising in the village of Nyzhni Sirogozy, Ukraine.3. Notice of the application was given to the Ukrainian Government (“the Government”).THE FACTS4. The relevant details of 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 in this respect.THE LAWI. ALLEGED 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), 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. APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 41 OF THE CONVENTION12.

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