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Journey to Italy: The European and UN monitoring of Italian penal and prison policies

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Notes

  1. All prison population statistics are extrapolated from data of the Italian Istituto di statistica (www.istat.it).

  2. Law No. 354 of 1975,the so called Penitentiary Law (P.L.).

  3. Italy has passed 58 pardon and amnesty acts since 1948, the last one having been adopted in 2006.

  4. We remind that the SMR have been revised and updated to the most recent standards in 2015 with the so called Nelson Mandela Rules. On the 14th of June, 2017 (Draft Law No. 4368), the Italian Parliament charged the Government with the task of revising the Penitentiary Law, without referring to the Nelson Mandela Rules. The scope of the mandate seems so wide and vague that it is impossible to formulate a prevision on the final result.

  5. The Council of Europe [10] had recommended that States implement the system of community sanctions and measures in order to reduce prison overcrowding.

  6. The Council of Europe’s European Committee on Crime Problems [12] suggested preventing prison overcrowding mainly by following the principle of deprivation of liberty as a measure of last resort and, secondly, adopting policies of revision of penal law, decriminalisation and alternatives to penal proceedings. The sole policy of implementing alternative measures may, indeed, produce a negative impact of net widening of the criminal justice system.

  7. In the period 1975–1986 the limitation was only based on administrative decisions that created maximum security prisons (Article 90 of P.L.), Law No. 663 of 1986 introduced the first judicial supervision on the maximum security.

  8. Article 4 bis of the Penitentiary Law was firstly introduced to ban organized crime members from alternative measures, but its scope has since been expanded.

  9. Sulejmanovic v. Italy, application No. 22635/03, 16 July, 2009. In the Sulejmanovic judgment, the Court found a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights regarding the applicant’s conditions of detention. The Sulejmanovic judgment appears to consolidate the previous Strasbourg jurisprudence concerning prison overcrowding, prison conditions and the scope of Article 3 of the Convention. At the same time it provides a practical approach and a set of clear principles and procedural obligations for member states, consolidating a jurisprudential trend that presumes a violation of Article 3 when the personal space available to prisoners is less than 3m2 and assuming that when the available space in the cell falls between 3m2 and 4m2, the violation can be assessed in the presence of other relevant factors such as such as the possibility of using the toilet in private, availability of ventilation, access to natural light or air, adequacy of heating arrangements and compliance with basic sanitary requirements. In any other case, the Court should rely on elements such as the duration of detention in particular conditions, the possibilities for outdoor exercise, the physical and mental condition of the detainee, and so on.

  10. See, inter alia: https://antonellamascia.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/nel-caso-sulejmanovic-c-italia-la-cedu-accerta-per-la-prima-volta-la-violazione-dell%E2%80%99articolo-3-della-convenzione-per-eccessivo-sovraffollamento-carcerale/

    http://camerepenali.it/public/file/Documenti/Documenti%20osservatorio%20carcere/Passione%20-%20commento%20Torregiani%20e%20altri.pdf

    http://www.duitbase.it/database-cedu/sulejmanovic-c-italia

    http://www.sidi-isil.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Di-Perna-SIDI.pdf

  11. Law No. 199 of 2010.

  12. http://www.pianocarceri.it.

  13. This body, first introduced with the Fascist reform of penitentiary law in 1931, was competent for the following subjects: supervising the organization of prisons, approving the prisoners’ treatment programs, supervising the respect of prisoner’s rights and with special regard to disciplinary sanctions and prison labour, applying both alternative measures to imprisonment and security measures for offenders considered “socially dangerous” (e.g. psychiatric hospitals detention).

  14. In these cases, according to Article 14 ter of the Penitentiary Law, the procedure was as follows: the prisoner could apply personally (without the need of legal assistance) within ten days of the violation, and the Court had to decide within the following ten days. Both the prisoner and the prison authority could not appear in front of the Court and were only allowed to send written pleas. The chamber hearing only envisaged the participation of the prisoner’s attorney and the prosecutor.

  15. From 45 to 75 days of early release for each semester spent in detention.

  16. According to the new remedy, a prisoner can appeal directly, at any time and regardless of time passed, to the competent Surveillance Court claiming a violation of a norm of the Penitentiary Law by the prison authorities. The only substantial admissibility condition required by the norm is that the damage deriving from the violation has to be “ongoing” at the time of the claim. Solely in case of a violation of a norm ruling on the application of disciplinary sanctions, the prisoner must apply within ten days from the communication of the disciplinary sanction.

  17. See, inter alia, Muršić v. Croatia, [GC] application No. 7334/13, 20 October 2016, §§ 127–128. For a comprehensive analysis of the general principles applicable in the context of prison overcrowding, see also the dissenting opinion of Judge Sicilianos in Muršić v. Croatia, application No. 7334/13, 12 March 2015.

  18. The case law was mainly focused on cases of violation of Article. 3 of the Convention deriving from the structural overcrowding situation reported in the Torreggiani decision. The first attempt to nullify the application of the remedy came from technical advice of the Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura (CSM), which suggested also requiring a compensatory remedy for an “on going violation” at the time of application, the same requirement that was only made explicit for the preventive one. As a result, the compensatory remedy cannot be applied to past violations of Article 3 of the Convention. This kind of interpretation has been widely accepted by most of Courts in the first months of applications, when thousands of prisoners applied with claims that they had been detained in overcrowded conditions.

    Part of the legal doctrine and jurisprudence is rejecting this interpretative position, arguing that it is based on a false textual interpretation of the norm, and that it nullifies the intent of the legislator to provide the effective remedies requested by the ECtHR in the Torregiani case [18, 28]. The norm ruling the compensatory remedy wasn’t clearly redacted, but it could very easily be interpreted to enforce the intent of the law to give a compensation to prisoners who had been detained in an overcrowded condition [18].

    The resistance of the jurisprudence in granting the remedy may be explained with different arguments. In terms of the cultural resistance to the change, Surveillance judges have traditionally interpreted their role as the Judge of execution, specifically of alternative measure to detention and penitentiary benefits. They have developed collaborative relationships with prison administration and all other subjects involved in execution. This role conflicts with the new one assigned by the law, consisting in monitoring and controlling the acts of the same administration.

  19. Corte di Cassazione, No. 52819 of 2016.

  20. Stella v. Italy, application No. 49169 of 2009, 16 September 2014.

  21. §63. “La Cour estime qu’elle ne dispose d’aucun élément qui lui permettrait de dire que le recours en question ne présente pas, en principe, de perspective de redressement approprié du grief tiré de la Convention. La Cour souligne toutefois que cette conclusion ne préjuge en rien, le cas échéant, d’un éventuel réexamen de la question de l’effectivité du recours en question, et notamment de la capacité des juridictions internes à établir une jurisprudence uniforme et compatible avec les exigences de la Convention (Korenjak c. Slovénie, no 463/03, § 73, 15 mai 2007, et Şefik Demir c. Turquie (déc.), no 51770/07, § 34, 16 octobre 2012), et de l’exécution effective de ses décisions. Elle conserve sa compétence de contrôle ultime pour tout grief présenté par des requérants qui, comme le veut le principe de subsidiarité, ont épuisé les voies de recours internes disponibles (Radoljub Marinković c. Serbie (déc.), no 5353/11, §§ 49–61, 29 janvier 2013).”

  22. See, inter alia: https://rm.coe.int/CoERMPublicCommonSearchServices/DisplayDCTMContent?documentId=09000016804a91a6#search=radicali%20italiani%20torreggiani

  23. See: https://rm.coe.int/CoERMPublicCommonSearchServices/DisplayDCTMContent?documentId=09000016804aa9a9#search=altrodiritto

  24. Available at: https://search.coe.int/cm/Pages/result_details.aspx?ObjectID=09000016805c1a5b

  25. Neshkov and Others v. Bulgaria, Applications No. 36925/10, 21,487/12, 72,893/12, 73,196/12, 77,718/12 and 9717/13, 27 January 2015.

  26. Varga and Others v. Hungary, Application No. 14097/12, 45,135/12, 73,712/12, 34,001/13, 44,055/13, and 64,586/13, 10March 2010.

  27. Except for the report on the 2010 visit, all visit reports and related Government responses have been published on the CPT’s website: http://www.cpt.coe.int/en/states/ita.htm

  28. The visit visit took place from 13 to 25 May and the related report was adopted by the CPT at its 79th meeting, held from 5 to 9 November 2012.

  29. Taking into account the prison population statistics, since the last visit of 2008, the prison population had increased from some 59,000 to 66,258 prisoners. For contextual perspective, the official capacity had increased less than proportionally (from 43,012 to 45,584 places), with a rise of the overcrowding rate from 37% in 2008, to 45% in 2012.

  30. CPT, Report to the Italian Government on the visit to Italy carried out by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) from 13 to 25 May 2012 (2012 Report), § 44, available at: http://www.cpt.coe.int/documents/ita/2013-32-inf-eng.pdf

  31. Ivi, p. 24.

  32. CPT, Rapport au Gouvernement de l’Italie relatif à la visite effectuée par le Comité européen pour la prévention de la torture et des peines ou traitements inhumains ou dégradants (CPT) en Italie du 15 au 27 mars 1992 (1992 Report), §77, available at: http://www.cpt.coe.int/documents/ita/1995-01-inf-fra.pdf.

  33. Ibidem.

  34. Law No. 10, 21 February 2014.

  35. See https://search.coe.int/cm/Pages/result_details.aspx?ObjectID=09000016804ab52f for the text of the Consolidated Report by the Italian Government, which includes: “…the provision of an internal independent and continuous monitoring of the places of deprivation of liberty (in line with the NPM requirements under the OPCAT)” within the five lines of its Action Plan.

  36. Relazione al Parlamento 2017, available online: http://www.garantenazionaleprivatiliberta.it/gnpl/it/dettaglio_contenuto.page?contentId=CNG1161&modelId=10017

  37. Law No. 498 of 1988

  38. Cestaro v. Italy, No. 6884 of 2011.

  39. D. Passione, “Il reato che non c’è; quello che ci serve”, in C. Peroni, S. Santorso, (eds,), Per uno stato che non tortura, Mimesis, Milan, 2016, p. 56.

  40. See Recommendation 1743 (2006)1 “Memorandum of understanding between the Council of Europe and the European Union” adopted by the Assembly on 13 April 2006 (14th sitting) and the Assembly debate on 13 April 2006 (14th Sitting), Doc.10892, report of the Political Affairs Committee, rapporteur: Mr. Kosachev. See also the Commission Green Paper, on the application of EU criminal justice legislation in the field of detention - Strengthening mutual trust in the European judicial area - of 14 June 2011 (COM(2011) 327, final.

  41. See Resolution of 7 December 2011 (2011/2897(RSP), B7–0687/2011) following its resolution of 18 January 1996 on poor conditions in prisons in the European Union (OJ C 32, 5.2.1996, p.102) and its resolution of 17 December 1998 on prison conditions in the European Union: improvements and alternative penalties (OJ C 98, 9.4.1999, p.299. A4–0369/98).

  42. See http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/libe/home.html#menuzone

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Correspondence to Sofia Ciuffoletti.

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The authors worked together in an integrated way to the development and discuss the methodology, fieldwork and results as well as all of the theories that are employed in this work. In particular, Giuseppe Caputo developed paragraphs 1, 2.2 and 3, and Sofia Ciuffoletti paragraphs 2.1, 2.3, 4, 5 and the conclusion

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Caputo, G., Ciuffoletti, S. Journey to Italy: The European and UN monitoring of Italian penal and prison policies. Crime Law Soc Change 70, 19–35 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-017-9717-z

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