Status: 03/01/2023 12:46 p.m
A criminal held in preventive detention had been bound almost continuously during a four-day hospital stay. The Federal Constitutional Court has now ruled that this violated his personal rights.
A man in preventive detention has successfully appealed to the Federal Constitutional Court against being tied up during a hospital stay. The court in Karlsruhe declared that the almost uninterrupted four-day bondage violated his general personality rights.
After ten years in prison, the plaintiff came to Werl Prison in North Rhine-Westphalia for preventive detention in February 2020. A good six months later, the sick man had to go to the Dortmund University Hospital for an operation. There, with the exception of the time under general anesthesia, he was handcuffed or ankle-tied for 96 hours – during the preliminary examination, in the operating room anteroom, when waking up and during walks with two armed men.
The man took legal action against it. He was in pain because of the bondage and could not sleep properly. He was unable to turn or bend his legs while lying down because he was tied to the bed frame with an ankle shackle.
District court: bondage was appropriate
The district court of Arnsberg had considered the bondage to be proportionate. Because it was unclear how long the preventive detention would last, a certain escape motivation can be assumed. The situation in the hospital was unpredictable, and the JVA had no experience with the man being transported. According to the JVA, a person in preventive detention could only go outside without shackles if he had already been tied up a few times without problems.
The man then went before the Federal Constitutional Court, which now ruled differently: According to the constitutional judges, the regional court should have checked whether all alternative measures had been exhausted.
Case must be retried
So it made sense here to increase the number of JVA officials in order to be able to do without the shackles at least temporarily. And it should have been taken into account that the man’s previous behavior gave no cause for complaint and that his illness would have made an escape attempt more difficult. The district court must now hear the case again.
(Az. 2 BvR 1719/21)