The only non-smoker in his prison cell, an inmate exposed to passive smoking lodged a complaint for “inhuman” conditions. And won.
Living with smokers can be complicated – especially when you’re in prison. Tired of living in a smoky prison world, from which it is by definition difficult to escape, a detainee took legal action to denounce “inhuman, degrading and unhealthy” conditions of detention, as the story goes. Point.
120 days of passive smoking
The man filed a complaint in early 2015, the day after his release. The Coutances (Manche) remand center, where he was imprisoned, has one particularity: its cells are made up of dormitories with six to twelve beds. It is a small prison that can accommodate 71 inmates in nine cells.
During his detention, this 36-year-old Norman says he suffered hell, a tobacco furnace version. For 120 days, it occupied the EQHSG then EQHCU cells, with a respective surface area of 21 m2 and 20.75 m2, with a single 80-centimeter window, with seasoned smokers as cellmates.
And 1,200 euros in damages
The administrative court of Caen, which examined this file, has just delivered its judgment. The judges considered that “the detainee can claim that he has been in a certain promiscuity. As he himself is a non-smoker, his imprisonment did not take place in the sanitary conditions required by the European Convention on Human Rights ”.
In compensation for the damage suffered, the man will receive 1,200 euros in damages.
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