Decision of the Court of Cassation, I Criminal Section, No. 49793 of 19 October 2017

Through this decision, the Court of Cassation specified the parameters resulting from the ECHR Court jurisprudence for assessing whether certain conditions of prison detention amount to inhuman or degrading treatment in the meaning of Article 3 of the ECHR. In measuring the minimum space of movement (3 square meters per detainee), the Surveillance Judge had to deduct the encumbrance of the bed from the cell area. Moreover, he had to consider the overall conditions of the detention that according to the European Court must be evaluated to overcome the presumption that the detention in very small cells constitutes a treatment forbidden by the ECHR.