Roth v. Germany

Information Note on the Court’s case-law 244 October 2020 Roth v. Germany - 6780/18 and 30776/18 Judgment 22.10.2020 [Section V] Article 3 Degrading treatment No legitimate purpose for repeated, random strip searches of prisoner receiving visitors and refusal to grant compensation for non-pecuniary damage: violation Article 13 Effective remedy Refusal to grant compensation for non-pecuniary damage resulting from unlawful random strip searches of prisoner receiving visitors: violation Facts – The applicant was subjected to repeated, random strip searches prior to and after receiving visitors in prison. The domestic courts refused to grant him compensation for the non-pecuniary damage he had suffered as a result of these searches. Law – Article 3: The strip searches of the applicant, which had included an inspection of the anus and thus also entailed embarrassing positions, had been intrusive. The repeated searches had been random searches, which had been ordered against one in five prisoners at the relevant time without any possibility to dispense with a search in a particular case. On all occasions on which the applicant had been searched, he had expected visits from, or had met public officials, including clerks of the district court registry. There had been no concrete security concerns relating to the applicant. However, the manner in which the system of random strip searches had been applied had not permitted to take into account the applicant’s conduct...