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歐美研究
Detention Conditions and Human Dignity
—
A Study on Decisions of the European Court of
Human Rights
Pi-fang Wang
Institutum Iurisprudentiae, Academia Sinica
No. 128, Sec. 2, Academia Rd., Taipei 11529, Taiwan
E-mail:
florie@sinica.edu.twAbstract
The central issue of inmate right under European law has gone
beyond whether to recognize inmate rights, and instead focuses on
how to protect, substantively and effectively, the human rights and
dignity of inmates. Among the many issues, problems concerning the
conditions of detention have drawn much attention. Notwith-
standing that the European Convention on Human Rights does not
address issues of detention, the European Court of Human Rights
has articulated the concept of human dignity, and created the right
to decent conditions of detention according to Article 3 of the Con-
vention, which prohibits torture. This paper discusses first the ques-
tion of why and how the European Court of Human Rights has re-
written Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights
through its interpretation, and, secondly, based on certain adjudica-
tions, analyses the acceptable standards and requirements of the
conditions of detention through the lens of human dignity. Finally,
the paper points out the characteristics of the European protection
mechanism.
Key Words:
conditions of detention, human dignity, European
Court of Human Rights