Background
Five applicants complained about conditions at Korydallos Prison in Greece. Georgios Drivas alleged that, during his detention from July 2019 to June 2021, he was held in overcrowded cells and also faced restricted warm-water access, inadequate temperatures, poor hygiene, inadequate food, limited fresh air and passive smoking.
Two applicants did not provide the Court with requested updated information and detention documentation, despite a warning that their applications could be struck out. Two others had been released or transferred before lodging their Strasbourg application and sought redress for past detention conditions without first bringing a compensation action under Article 105 of the Introductory Law to the Civil Code.
The Court’s Holding
The Court struck out the applications of Spyridon Asmanoglou and Ioannis Panagiotopoulos because it was no longer justified to continue examining them. It rejected the Article 3 complaints of Nikolaos Avramopoulos and Theodoros Mylonas for failure to exhaust domestic remedies: by the time they applied, the complained-of detention had ended, so the domestic compensation action was an available remedy they had to use first.
As to Drivas, the Court found an Article 3 violation. The evidence showed persistent and severe overcrowding at Korydallos, including occupancy above the prison’s intended capacity throughout his detention. The Government did not provide precise information about his cellmates, and the Court accepted that he had suffered a manifest and non-temporary lack of personal space. It awarded him EUR 6,000 for non-pecuniary damage and EUR 1,000 in costs and expenses. The Court found no need to examine his separate Article 13 complaint and rejected the remaining complaints as inadmissible or as disclosing no appearance of a Convention violation.
Key Takeaways
- Persistent overcrowding and a manifest lack of personal space at Korydallos Prison breached Article 3 in Drivas’s case.
- Former detainees seeking compensation for past detention conditions must generally exhaust Greece’s Article 105 civil remedy before applying to Strasbourg.
- The Court struck out claims where applicants failed to provide requested updated information showing they wished to pursue the case.
Why It Matters
The judgment applies the Court’s established approach to prison overcrowding: a serious and sustained shortage of personal space can itself, or together with other shortcomings, make detention degrading under Article 3.
It also underscores the procedural distinction between an ongoing detention complaint and a claim for retrospective compensation. Where detention has already ended, applicants must ordinarily pursue the available domestic damages remedy first.