L'obligation de protéger un détenu de ses codétenus

FAITS

Monsieur Alexandru Marius Radu a été condamné en mai 2006 pour vol avec violence. Durant sa détention provisoire, il a subi des violences de ses codétenus contre lesquelles les autorités ont tardé à réagir.

SOLUTION

Dans son arrêt du 21 juillet 2009, Marius Radu c. Roumanie, la Cour européenne des droits de l'Homme conclut à la violation de l’article 3 par les autorités qui, non seulement ne sont pas intervenues de façon satisfaisante, mais l'ont d'abord sanctionné pour avoir enfreint la discipline pénitentiaire en essayant de se protéger.

De plus, la Cour estime que l'angoisse constante éprouvé par le détenu de subir des exactions était en soi une violence au même titre que les mauvais traitements eux-même (l’arrêt n’existe qu’en anglais).

CITATIONS

" 46.  The Court also notes that instead of promptly taking measures for the applicant's protection, the penitentiary administration, as a first step, punished him with strict solitary confinement for breach of disciplinary rules, accusing him of offences that were generally less important than those about which he was complaining. [...]

48. [...] The Court considers that the hardship the applicant endured, in particular the constant mental anxiety caused by the threat of physical violence and the anticipation of such (see Rodić and Others v. Bosnia and Herzegovina, no. 22893/05, § 73, 27 May 2008), must have exceeded the unavoidable level inherent in detention and finds that the resulting suffering went beyond the threshold of severity under Article 3 of the Convention.

Finally, while recognising that it may prove difficult for prisoners to obtain evidence of ill-treatment (see mutatis mutandis Labita v. Italy [GC], no. 26772/95, § 25, ECHR 2000 IV and even more so of mere acts of harassment by other detainees (see, mutatis mutandis, Rodić and Others cited above, §§ 64 and 69-73), the Court finds a sufficient factual base in the present case to consider that there was an established threat to the applicant's physical integrity and that the existence of that threat had been brought to the attention of the authorities.

49.  Consequently, in the light of the above and on the basis of all the material placed before it, the Court finds that the prison authorities did not satisfactorily fulfil their positive obligation to intervene in order to protect the applicant when they were aware of the fact that other detainees had ill-treated him (see Pantea v. Romania, cited above, § 194)."