03 Sep Violation of the Convention by de facto deprivation of the possibility of reviewing the sentence of life imprisonment

In the case Sandor Varga and Others v. Hungary (applications nos. 39734/15, 35530/16,
and 26804/18) the European Court of Human Rights found a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The cases concern the applicants’ life sentences without the possibility of release on parole.
The first applicant was sentenced for the premeditated murder for financial gain of four people and
a series of armed robberies committed in a criminal organisation. The second and third applicants’
sentences were for the premeditated murder of six people, committed with special cruelty with racist motives and in a criminal organisation, and for a series of related crimes (armed robbery and firearms offences). The fourth applicant was sentenced for the attempted murder of several people, for financial gain and committed with special cruelty, as
well as for several counts of robberies and assault.

The applicants argued that they had been de facto deprived of a real chance to regain their liberty, even if the amendments to the legislation made after the Court’s judgment in László Magyar v. Hungary (no. 73593/10, 20 May 2014) had introduced a mandatory pardon procedure after a convicted person has served forty years. They considered that the pardon procedure did not constitute a sufficient guarantee for a reduction of their sentence, firstly, because it was applicable only after forty years of the sentence had been served, a period which fell out of the Court’s standards and, secondly, because it was a purely discretional decision, not satisfying the requirements of objectivity and predictability.

The Court concluded that the new Hungarian legislation did not offer de facto reducibility of the applicants’ whole life sentences. That factor, coupled with the lack of sufficient procedural safeguards in the second part of the procedure, as provided for by the new legislation, led the Court to find a violation of Article 3 of the Convention.

The Court notes that the arguments raised by the Government are similar to those already examined and rejected in T.P. and A.T. v. Hungary. The Government have not submitted any new circumstances which would lead the Court to depart from its previous findings that the applicants’ whole life sentences cannot be regarded as reducible for the purposes of Article 3 of the Convention. There has accordingly been a violation of that provision.

References from the official website of the European Court of Human Rights