Judgment concerning Greece

Main hearing's room carpet in the Human Rights building (detail)
15/10/24

In the case of Nsingi v. Greece the Court held that there had been a violation of the right to liberty and security / right to compensation of the Convention.

The case concerned the rejection of the applicant’s claim for compensation for having been imprisoned pursuant to a sentence that had been handed down in respect of a different person, for whom he had been mistaken at the time of his arrest.

The applicant was arrested by the police and, after verification of his identity, was registered under the name of an individual who had been sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment for drug possession. The prosecutor ordered that he be sent to prison. The applicant then demanded that he be released, objecting that he was not the person who had been convicted and sentenced. The Criminal Court dismissed the applicant’s objections without giving reasons for its decision.

The Court took the view that the complete lack of reasoning in the Thessaloniki Criminal Court’s judgment had clearly been in breach of the principle of protection against arbitrariness, having regard, in particular, to the fact that the applicant was, at the time, imprisoned pursuant to a judgment imposing an eight-year prison sentence on a different person.

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