Dismissal of the complaint against the transfer to the Thorberg prison

Facts

The complainant [A.] was sentenced by the Basel-Stadt Criminal Court on June 12, 2020, to a prison term of 7 years for attempted intentional homicide and was expelled from the country for 12 years. He appealed against this conviction, which is still pending before the Basel-Stadt Court of Appeal. The complainant has been in pre-trial detention since February 25, 2019, and in early prison sentence execution since July 5, 2019. On November 6, 2019, the Office for the Execution of Penalties, Criminal and Measures, ordered his transfer to the Thorberg prison, effective November 13, 2019.

The complainant requested the execution authority to revoke the transfer order and to examine a possible transfer to the Lenzburg prison. After he was transferred to the Thorberg prison on November 13, 2019, he filed a complaint against the transfer order with the Department of Justice and Security. The execution authority informed the complainant that the execution order of November 6, 2019, was not a challengeable decision. The complainant then withdrew his complaint and filed a request for reconsideration with the execution authority regarding his transfer to the Thorberg prison and a possible transfer to the Lenzburg prison.

The Department of Justice and Security dismissed the complainant's complaint and denied a legal interest in a determination that the transfer to the Thorberg prison was unlawful. The complainant filed a criminal complaint with the Federal Court and requested the annulment of items 2 and 3 of the contested decision and a determination that the Department of Justice and Security had violated his right to expedite the processing of his complaint of June 2, 2020.

Considerations

The Federal Court admitted the complaint insofar as the complainant challenged the ordered detention conditions. The complainant's complaint of denial of justice was inadmissible because he had not sufficiently substantiated that he had a continuing legal interest in the processing of his application for a determination.

The complainant alleged a violation of Art. 3 para. 2 CrimPC, Art. 29 Cst., and Art. 6 para. 1 ECHR, as the execution authority had not heard him before his transfer to the Thorberg prison. However, the Federal Court found that the complainant's claim to legal hearing in connection with the issuance of the transfer order of November 6, 2019, which was not challenged, was outside the…