Proceedings in the case on provisions regarding the release from serving of a sentence in places of imprisonment have been terminated
The Constitutional Court has adopted a decision to terminate proceedings in the case No. 2009-115-01 “On Compliance of Section 116 of the Sentence Execution Code of Latvia with Article 91 of the Satversme of the Republic of Latvia”.
Article 91 of the Satversme provides that all human beings in Latvia shall be equal before the law and the courts, and human rights shall be realized without discrimination of any kind.
The contested norm provides: “If a convict gets a physical disease or any other grave, incurable disease during the custody period, due to which he or she is not able to continue serving of the sentence, the institution ensuring sentence serving shall provide expert examination in accordance with law. Based on the doctors’ commission report, the institution ensuring sentence serving shall have the right to propose the court releasing the person from serving the rest of the sentence”.
The Applicant indicated that he has a grave disease; however, the institution ensuring sentence serving refused proposing the court releasing him from serving the sentence because, according to the opinion of the institution ensuring sentence serving, he did not get the disease during the sentence serving.
The Constitutional Court indicated that, although it can be concluded that each person who got a disease during the sentence serving if the contested norm is interpreted grammatically; such interpretation, however, cannot be regarded as sufficient; therefore other methods of interpretation should be applied. The Court concluded that the aim of the contested norm is prevent holding of a person in a place of deprivation of liberty provided that his or her health condition is that weak that it is not possible to ensure an adequate health care at the place of deprivation of liberty. Therefore, when applying the contested norm, it is necessary to assess health condition of a convict and the possibility to continue serving of a sentence, rather than the place and time of falling ill.
The Constitutional Court indicated that the contested norm, however, does not prohibit assessing health condition of convicts, whose disease has progressed during the sentence serving period. Consequently, the Court concluded that proceedings in the case shall be terminated.
The judgment of the Constitutional Court is final and not subject to appeal.
Linked case: 2009-115-01