On 16 April 2025, the European Prison Litigation Network (EPLN), together with five leading Ukrainian human rights organisations — Protection for Prisoners of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, the Human Rights Protection Group “Sich”, and Ukraine Without Torture — submitted a third-party intervention to the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Panasenko and Others v. Ukraine (applications nos. 27445/22 and others).
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The submission highlights systemic failures in Ukraine’s medical release system for seriously ill prisoners. The legal framework for medical release is outdated, vague, and inconsistently applied. Prisoners face routine delays at both the administrative and judicial stages of their applications, often resulting in deaths before decisions are made. The criteria for medical release are tied to an inflexible list of illnesses, preventing individualised assessments, while prisoners are frequently denied legal representation and access to appropriate medical care.
Statistical evidence demonstrates a persistently high mortality rate in Ukrainian prisons—more than twice the European average—paired with a sharp decline in granted medical release petitions. The situation is further exacerbated by inhumane conditions, inadequate end-of-life care, and severe delays in court proceedings. The continued detention of seriously ill prisoners places an unsustainable burden on Ukraine’s already under-resourced prison healthcare system, obstructing broader penitentiary reforms essential for Ukraine’s European integration process.
The organisations emphasise that the problem is structural and persistent, despite repeated findings by the Committee of Ministers, the European Commission, the CPT, and Ukrainian authorities themselves. They call on the Court to address these issues under Article 46 of the Convention, urging it to require Ukraine to implement systemic reforms to guarantee effective, humane, and Convention-compliant procedures for the medical release of seriously ill prisoner