Release from Serving a Sentence Due to Severe Illness – A Systemic Issue Requiring a Solution
Release from serving a sentence due to severe illness is a procedure designed to secure a convict’s right to proper medical treatment and the opportunity to preserve their own life. The List of Illnesses serving as grounds for release from further serving of a sentence, approved by Joint Order No. 1348/5/572 of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine dated 15 August 2014, includes the most severe forms of diseases that are no longer treatable and for which the medical prognosis is unfavourable.
Since, in accordance with Article 50 § 3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, punishment does not aim to cause physical suffering or humiliate human dignity, Article 84 § 2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine establishes the possibility of release from punishment or its further serving for a person who, after committing a crime or having a sentence pronounced, has contracted a serious illness that prevents them from serving the sentence. In resolving this issue, the court takes into account the gravity of the crime committed, the nature of the illness, the personality of the convict, and other circumstances of the case.
Furthermore, contracting a serious illness serves as grounds for release from punishment or from its further serving under Article 84 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine when, in particular, continued detention in places of deprivation of liberty threatens the convict’s life or may lead to a severe deterioration in their state of health and other grave consequences, which is precisely the case in the matters described below.
However, in court hearings and appeals, prosecutors put forward arguments that contradict the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and have no relevance whatsoever to the release of a convict on medical grounds: their attitude to labour; the presence or absence of disciplinary penalties and rewards; the gravity of the crime; the ability of the convict’s relatives or the sick person himself to fund medical treatment in freedom; and the convict’s placement in medical units within correctional institutions or in medical facilities of the Healthcare Centre of the State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine.
