Constitutional Court: Detention must remain a last resort, even when treatment fails
The Constitutional Court Senate, led by judge Martin Smolka, quashed a decision on preventive detention of a man suffering from dual diagnosis.
Constitutional Court: Detention must remain a last resort, even when treatment fails
Preventive detention can only be imposed if all milder measures have been exhausted. This is the message of a recent Constitutional Court ruling, as reported by Novinky.cz.
The disputed case concerns an offender who was found guilty of robbery in 2015. During his sentence, he developed paranoid schizophrenia combined with dependence on drugs and alcohol. The court initially assigned him outpatient protective treatment, but as he breached the rules, he was gradually moved to inpatient care, then back to outpatient treatment, and again to inpatient care.
When the man continued to drink and take drugs, the judge sent him to a preventive detention facility. The convicted man appealed by constitutional petition. The Senate, led by Martin Smolka, ruled in his favour.
According to Smolka, the justice system must first examine whether gentler options exist. For the man in question, facilities specialising in dual diagnoses—meaning concurrent psychiatric illness and substance abuse—were available. The state has a duty to actively use such alternatives before resorting to the most severe measure.
The case now returns to the district court, which must reassess whether the man is truly so high-risk that he requires isolation in a detention facility, or whether specialised outpatient or inpatient care would suffice.
Source: Novinky.cz