Third Degree Cases Before the European Court of Human Rights

Abstract

Crimes in the third degree are punishable under the Hungarian criminal code too and it also runs counter to the prohibition of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment defined in international conventions. After describing the difficulties in proving third degree I am going to present cases initiated for the infringement of the prohibition of torture, the general principles of the case law applied by the European Court of Human Rights and two specific cases. In the course of searching for the causes of the third degree I will try to reply to the fact why this illegal method is still practised.