Europe’s top rights court on Tuesday said Estonia’s smoking ban in jails violated basic rights and ordered the Baltic nation to pay compensation to three prisoners.
The European Court of Human Rights said this violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights guaranteeing “the right to respect for private and family life”.
The ECHR said the decision to smoke was a matter of personal autonomy, with prisoners entitled to make decisions about their life and health.
Inmates retain all fundamental rights under the convention, except for the right to liberty, the Strasbourg-based court said.
“In a context of already limited personal autonomy, the freedom for prisoners to decide — such as whether to smoke — was all the more precious for them,” the court added.
The inmates had complained about the ban as well as the withdrawal symptoms they experienced as long-time smokers such as weight gain, sleeping problems, depression and anxiety.
The court criticised Estonian authorities for imposing the ban without assessing the “impact on the personal autonomy of prisoners who smoked”.
“Such a far-reaching and absolute ban had not been justified,” it said, asking Estonia to pay 1,500 euros ($1,700) to each of the three successful plaintiffs.
While the ECHR had previously ruled on cases concerning prisoners’ exposure to second-hand smoke, this was the first time it evaluated the impact of a smoking ban on long-term smokers.
