Napier v The Scottish Ministers 2004 SLT 555
Citation: Napier v The Scottish Ministers 2004 SLT 555
Rule of thumb: What can a prisoner do if the conditions in their prison cell are atrocious & give medical conditions? If the standard of hygiene in a prison is so poor it causes medical conditions then this is a violation of Article 3 ECHR, the right against degrading & inhumane conditions.
Judgment:
The basic facts of this case were that Napier argued that the conditions in the prison cell he was put in were considered to be ‘slopping out’ and in violation of Article 3 – the right not to be subjected to inhumane and degrading conditions. The Court considered a very wide range of factors in considering whether the ‘slopping out’ condition had been met. They also considered the impact this had on the prisoner’s eczema and mental health state. All in all the Court held that the conditions the prisoners in Barlinnie Prison were indeed slopping out and a violation of Article 3. The Court held that better recreation and hygiene regimes in Scottish prisons had to be introduced in order to reverse this, "the respondents had acted unlawfully in terms of s 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 and ultra vires in terms of s 57 of the Scotland Act 1998 by acting in a manner incompatible with art 3 of the Convention and detaining the petitioner in conditions in which he was subject to degrading treatment... my consideration of the evidence of those I have called experienced students and examiners of prison conditions...has led me to conclude that to detain a person along with another prisoner in a cramped, stuffy and gloomy cell which is inadequate for the occupation of two people, to confine them there together for a least 20 hours on average per day, to deny him overnight access to a toilet throughout the week and for extended periods at the weekend and thus to expose him to both elements of the slopping out process, to provide no structured activity other than daily walking exercise for one hour and one period of recreation lasting an hour and a half in a week, and to confine him to a "dog box" for two hours or so each time he entered or left the prison was, in Scotland in 2001, capable of attaining the minimum level of severity necessary to constitute degrading treatment and thus to infringe article 3... having regard to ... all the circumstance of the case, including in particular the duration of the treatment, its physical and mental effects and the state of health of the victim... of crucial importance...is the effect on the petitioner of the serious outbreak of eczema... the respondents had acted unlawfully in terms of s 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 and ultra vires in terms of s 57 of the Scotland Act 1998 by acting in a manner incompatible with art 3 of the Convention and detaining the petitioner in conditions in which he was subject to degrading treatment", The Lord Ordinary
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