Decision of the Court of Cassation, I Criminal Section, No. 22929 of 21 April 2017

The Court of Cassation annulled the decision of the Surveillance Court in Florence concerning the minimum space at disposal of detainees. The applicable criteria must be found in the jurisprudence of the ECHR Court and, most in particular, the pilot-judgment of 2012 on the case Torreggiani and others v. Italy. Accordingly, in determining the individual minimum space of three meters below of which detention is to be considered as an inhuman treatment contrary to Article 3 of the ECHR, it is necessary to take into account the space occupied by furniture, including the bed, and the area dedicated to the bathroom. However, the Court denied, in the case, that the claimant was entitled to compensatory remedy provided by Article 35 ter of the ‘ordinamento penitenziario’ (prison system).