Perspective Chapter: Lifers before the European Court of Human Rights

Abstract

In the chapter, we discuss the current policy of toughening sentences in Poland against the standards of dealing with prisoners, especially those sentenced to life imprisonment. However, the similar tendention is observed in other European countries. Policy regarding prisoner’s treatment should be related to human rights standards. Showing the universality of the international community’s approach as expressed in the recommendations of the Council of Europe gives a new contribution to the knowledge of the development of human rights even in relation to life prisoners. We present a unique study of 241 cases of life-sentenced prisoners that the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) decided between 1962 and 2019. This new knowledge concerns the following aspects: a statistical analysis of the problems that the complainants raised before the ECtHR and that, for the most part, constituted violations of the ECHR, the identification of specific problems due to the length of the sentence, the determination of whether the ECtHR applies a double standard due to the diversity of the respondent states, the evolution of the Court’s case law on the complaints of the life prisoners. It turns out that for lifers alone, the ECtHR ‘created’ two new rights.