Romania Expects More Time to Improve Overcrowded Jails

The European Court of Human Rights is set to rule on Tuesday in several cases against Romania about inhuman conditions in the country's prisons.

Romania is reportedly in line for a "pilot" ruling, an instrument of the ECHR designed to identify structural problems underlying repetitive cases against many countries and impose an obligation on states to address those problems.

Romanian Justice Minister Tudorel Toader said on Monday that he hoped the judges "don't expect us to be the best taking into account our will to reach European standards.

"I hope it will be a balanced decision that understands our complex conditions; then we will come up with measure to take so that we respect standards in prison conditions," he added.

The ECHR has also issued a pilot ruling for Hungary about its prison conditions. Hungary has six months to put together a set of reforms before the court starts admitting other similar complaints.

A report released on January 26 by the European Court for Human Rights noted that complaints about prison conditions in Romania [and other countries] rose sharply in 2016.

The president of the ECHR, Guido Raimondi, said at the time in Strasbourg that the cases "refer essentially to detention conditions. These are priorities because it is part of Article 3 of the Convention [on human rights], which forbids inhumane and degrading treatment.

"They are also repetitive, which reflects systemic or structural problems and demands global solutions at the domestic level," he added, citing the report.

In January, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis dismissed reports that Romania faced an 80-million-euro fine for bad prison conditions.

Romanian prisons are seriously overcrowded. Designed to accommodate a maximum...