The Strasbourg Court found that the Polish authorities have violated their positive duty under Article 9 of the Convention (protection of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion) by refusing to provide Janusz Jakóbski, who is a Mahayana Buddhist, with a diet conforming to his religious convictions. The violation included, among other things, the authorities’ failure to deliver a meat-free diet to the applicant. According to the ECtHR, the measures taken by the prison authorities were not proportionate, namely they failed to strike a fair balance between the interests of the prison institution and those of the applicant.
The Court held that a refusal to provide a detainee with a diet conforming to his or her religious dietary requirements should not be substantiated only with arguments of a technical and financial nature. In the case of such difficulties the prison staff should at least propose a substitute diet or consult the Buddhist Mission on the issue of the appropriate diet.
The Foundation is concerned about the current wording of the regulation of the Justice Minister dated 2003, which provides that a decision on granting a different diet to a prisoner, which can be either a “light diet” or a “diet for diabetics”, is taken independently by the head of a penitentiary facility.
“The current practices leave excessively broad margin of appreciation to individual penitentiary institutions”, comments Dr. Dorota Pudzianowska, a lawyer with the HFHR. She adds: “Moreover, they contravene the obligations imposed on Polish authorities under the judgment in Jakóbski and do not warrant that the right of detainees to have a diet conforming to their religious convictions is properly secured”.
Over the last four years, the Foundation has been systematically receiving complaints from detainees who have access to neither vegetarian nor pork-free meals. And this is the case even when religious communities are willing to provide such meals. In its letter to the General Director of the Prison Service the HFHR takes the position that these practices not only violate personal interests of detainees but are also in contravention of the recommendations of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers to member states on the European Prison Rules.
