THE ORGANIZATION OF THE LIFE SENTENCE REGIME: THE PRACTICE OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND UKRAINIAN LEGISLATION

This article is devoted to the analysis of the conditions of the life sentence regime which were developed by the practice of the ECtHR and enshrined in Ukrainian legislation, the way of their development and mechanism of action. The authors emphasize that the study of these conditions is an extremely important as such a punishment as life sentence is the most serious type of punishments, because it leads to the restriction of a big amount of constitutional rights of a person sentenced to this type of punishment. Based on the practice of the Court, the authors developed and proposed a classification of such conditions: 1) Place of living - the Court indicates that the area where the convict is kept must be sufficient for a decent and comfortable living, privacy; 2) Sanitary and hygienic - the room where the person is kept must be provided with a toilet, sufficiently lit and must be heated; 3) Social – ensuring these conditions requires the creation of social rehabilitation programs in places of detention, that should include activities for visiting relatives, walking in the fresh air and other contacts with the outside. In addition, the authors paid attention to the requirement that torture and humiliating treatment of this category of people are inadmissible. The articles of the Convention that are most often violated in relation to convicted ones are given. The particular attention in the article is paid to the concept of «right to hope», which was recently consolidated in Ukraine. The ECtHR decision «Petukhov v. Ukraine» No. 2 where the Court ordered Ukraine to change the procedure of parole was analyzed thoroughly. Based on this and other decisions of the ECtHR, the main characteristics of this concept, its essence were detected and the conclusion that serving this type of punishment without a real prospect of early release can be qualified as a violation of Article 3 in the form of «inhuman treatment» was made.