KALDA v. ESTONIA JUDGMENT
3
disputes with the prison administration and needed access to those Internet
sites in order to be able to defend his rights in court.
11. On 23 November 2007 the applicant’s complaint was dismissed by
the Ministry of Justice.
12. By a judgment of 17 July 2008 the Tartu Administrative Court
upheld the applicant’s complaint in respect of the Internet site www.coe.ee
and ordered Tartu Prison to grant him supervised access to that site via a
computer adapted for that purpose. The Administrative Court noted that
Tartu Prison had afforded its detainees access to the online version of Riigi
Teataja, the database of judicial decisions, and the Internet sites of the
European Court of Human Rights and the Supreme Court. The
Administrative Court further referred to the Supreme Court’s judgment of
31 May 2007 (see paragraphs 7 and 9 above) and to section 31-1 of the
Imprisonment Act (Vangistusseadus) (see paragraph 21 below), which had
entered into force on 1 June 2008. It noted that the Internet site of the
European Court of Human Rights – to which detainees had been granted
access – contained information only in English and French, whereas
translations into Estonian of the rulings of the European Court of Human
Rights were available on the Internet site of the Council of Europe
Information Office in Tallinn. The Administrative Court considered that the
burden of having the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights
translated into Estonian could not be placed on the applicant and concluded
that he also had to be granted access to the Internet site www.coe.ee. It
considered that this Internet site was similar to the database of judicial
decisions referred to in section 31-1 of the Imprisonment Act. In respect of
the Internet sites www.oiguskantsler.ee and www.riigikogu.ee, the court
found that access to these sites was not foreseen by section 31-1 of the
Imprisonment Act; in any case, the applicant could request information
directly from the institutions concerned or from Tartu Prison.
13. Both parties appealed. On 31 October 2008 the Tartu Court of
Appeal dismissed both appeals and upheld the first-instance court’s
judgment.
14. Both parties challenged the Appeal Court’s judgment before the
Supreme Court. The Administrative Law Chamber of the Supreme Court
referred the case to the Supreme Court’s plenary session on a point of
constitutionality. By a judgment of 7 December 2009 the plenary session of
the Supreme Court dismissed the applicant’s appeal and upheld Tartu
Prison’s appeal. It quashed the lower courts’ judgments in so far as these
granted the applicant access to the Internet site www.coe.ee.
15. The Supreme Court found that the Internet sites in question did not
fall under the exceptions provided for in section 31-1 of the Imprisonment
Act (see paragraph 21 below). Thus, the Supreme Court had to determine
whether that provision was in conformity with the Constitution. The
Supreme Court found that section 31-1 of the Imprisonment Act interfered
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