The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) awarded €12,200 as compensation to a Croatian prisoner who claimed that his rights were violated by inadequate prison conditions and the excessive duration of the procedure in which he claimed compensation for damages due to the prison conditions.

Considering the facts of this case, the ECHR applied previously used practice and reiterated that the lack of space in a prison cell is a particularly important condition when determining whether the conditions were humiliating from the perspective of the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

The Court found that the article of the Convention in the part that refers to humiliating treatment was violated for the applicant due to a five-month stay in inadequate conditions in prisons in Zagreb and Varazdin.

The Court also found that the applicant’s right to a trial within a reasonable time was violated due to the excessive duration of the civil proceedings for the purpose of compensation for damages due to the inappropriate conditions he was in while serving his prison sentence of more than ten years.

A violation of the right to an effective legal remedy was also established “due to the fact that an otherwise effective legal remedy (suit for damages) in the specific circumstances of the applicant’s case was an ineffective remedy precisely because of the excessive duration of the procedure,” the Office of the Croatian representative before the ECHR said.

In addition to €12,200 in compensation for non-material damage, the applicant was also awarded €250 in compensation for expenses and costs of the procedure.