Paving the road to space? the execution of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights on prison overcrowding

Abstract

This work is primarily concerned with the individual space in detention facilities in the context of overcrowding. Therefore, this analysis evaluates the legalization of prisoners’ rights within the Council of Europe, suggesting that a low level of legalization is associated with less compliance. The state of execution of pilot judgments on systematic overcrowding is analyzed in five contracting parties of the Council of Europe. The Committee of Ministers recently closed the execution of the Neshkov and Others v. Bulgaria pilot judgment, and the pilot judgments against Italy (Torreggiani and Others v. Italy) and Poland (Norbert Sikorski v. Poland and Orchowski v. Poland) were terminated back in 2016. The pilot judgments against Hungary (Varga and Others v. Hungary) and Romania (Rezmiveș and Others v. Romania) are still pending under the supervision of the Committee of Ministers. This work suggests that the issue of overcrowding in each country is a complex one and calls the decision of the Committee of Ministers to close its supervision of Torreggiani into question.