Ionel Garcea was sentenced in 2002 to seven years in prison for a rape he never admitted to. He was diagnosed with a mental illness and physical health problems, and often required psychiatric care from the prison hospital. He attempted to commit suicide several times, he refused to take his medication and three surgeries were needed after he attempted to drive a nail into his forehead.

Garcea approached a Romanian NGO, the Association for the Defense of Human Rights in Romania - the Helsinki Committee (APADOR-CH), on many occasions, the first time following his arrest and again after his imprisonment. He complained that prison guards beat him repeatedly. On one occasion he was hospitalized after they beat him unconscious. The prison management denied Garcea's allegations, claiming that the measures taken against him were necessary for his own protection.

Complications and death

While in the prison hospital at Jilava in 2007, Garcea again tried to drive a nail into his forehead. He was operated on at a civilian hospital and then sent to the prison hospital at Rahova to be treated for postsurgical complications, including sepsis and acute pneumonia. He died in that prison hospital one month after the surgery. The official investigation into his death is still ongoing.

APADOR-CH complained in Ionel Garcea’s name in front of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), alleging breaches of his right to life under Article 2 of the Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment (Article 3) and his right to an effective remedy (Article 13).

The NGO also complained that while in prison, Garcea did not receive the medical treatment that was necessary considering his mental and physical state. Moreover, the administrative and criminal investigations carried out after his death were ineffective and unsatisfactory.

Judgment

The court ruled on March 24, 2015, that Romania had violated Article 2 of the ECHR, saying that his death was the result of inadequate medical care. The court found that authorities failed to conduct an effective investigation into his death, and explained that the criminal inquiry cannot possibly be effective considering that five years have now passed without progress.

The ECtHR also clarified that an NGO can make a complaint to the court on behalf of a deceased person with whom the organization had worked prior to the death, as was the case with Ionel Garcea and APADOR-CH.

APADOR-CH did not ask for damages in Ionel Garcea’s case. The court’s decision reaffirms a basic principle, sometimes ignored by the state: even if a victim of abuse perpetrated by state agents dies and has no relatives, the state must conduct a rapid and effective investigation to punish those responsible for committing the abuses. When there is no family member, an NGO can represent them, especially when there had been previous collaboration between the victim and organization.

The full text of the judgment of the ECtHR is available here.