European Court recommends release of man charged with drug trafficking and detained for over 2,000 days

READ FULL JUDGEMENT HERE (redirects to ECHR website).

The applicant, Lawrence Gatt, from Senglea, was imprisoned on 28 July 2006.

Facing drug trafficking proceedings, Gatt was granted bail in August 2001. The conditions of bail included a personal guarantee of €23,300 and restrictions on his leaving his place of residence. Following a complaint that he had been seen in Valletta during his curfew hours, the Criminal Court revoked his bail, ordered him to be re-arrested and to pay the guarantee.

As he was not able to pay, imprisonment-in-default proceedings were brought under against him and in July 2006, the sum in guarantee was converted into detention at the rate of one day per €11.50: namely 2,000 days (or more than five years and six months) imprisonment.

Gatt brought a constitutional complaint which was ultimately dismissed on appeal in February 2008. The Constitutional Court held that his detention had its basis in the European Convention on Human Rights and that he had accepted the conditions of his bail in full knowledge of the consequences.

Gatt alleged that the conversion into imprisonment of the guarantee he had failed to pay on breaching his bail conditions, had been excessive and disproportionate. He particularly highlighted that, under the relevant provisions of the Criminal Code, no ceiling was placed on the maximum length of detention and that he could not benefit from remission for good behaviour.

An application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 10 June 2008.

It was not in dispute that Gatt’s detention had been lawful. However,the Court considered that Gatt, who had been under strict bail conditions for nearly five years – presumably without being able to earn a living – could not realistically have been expected to comply with the court order and fulfil the relevant obligation, and that, in the circumstances, his detention, especially taking into account its duration, had been disproportionate.

The Court said that the Maltese legislation was deficient in two respects: it had made no distinction between a breach of bail conditions related to the primary purpose of bail (his appearance at trial) and other considerations of a less serious nature such as a curfew, and it had not applied a ceiling on the duration of detention, nor had it made any assessment of proportionality. “Thus, it had failed to strike a balance between the importance in a democratic society of securing the fulfilment of the obligation in question and the importance of the right to liberty, in violation of Article 5 § 1.”