Communication Rule 9.2 case Jeanty v. Belgium No. 82284/17

In the case of Jeanty v. Belgium, the European Court of Human Rights found that Belgium had violated article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The case concerned the degrading treatment of the applicant, who is suffering from a psychological disorder, as a result of the lack of medical supervision and follow-up during two periods of pre-trial detention in the prison of Arlon. In addition to this, there also was a disciplinary punishment in solitary confinement for three days, because the applicant had made several suicide attempts. There, the applicant was stripped of his clothes, handcuffed and helmeted and he did not see a doctor in the first 24 hours of his solitary confinement. The case also concerned the lack of an effective investigation in this regard, given the delay between July 2014 and March 2015 in launching the judicial investigation of the case and, subsequently, the few investigative tasks carried out. On 5 February 2021, Belgium submitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe an action plan containing measures to implement the judgment and prevent new violations.

In a Rule 9 Submission to the Committee of Ministers, the Human Rights and Migration Law Clinic explains that the action plan is not sufficient to solve the structural and systemic problems Belgium has concerning the detention of offenders with psychological disorders in a prison environment unsuited to their therapeutic needs.