Together with the NGO Protection for Prisoners of Ukraine, we have submitted a joint communication to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, highlighting the continuing failure of the Ukrainian authorities to ensure adequate medical care in detention – as stressed in a number of in ECtHR judgments.[1]
The Committee of Ministers will examine our submission during its next Human Rights meeting, which will take place on 2-4 December 2025.
Read our submission >>
In our communication, we urge the Committee to keep the cases under enhanced supervision and to require the Government to present a clear, time-bound plan for delivering long-overdue reform of prison healthcare.
We underline persistent structural deficiencies in Ukraine’s prison healthcare system, including chronic understaffing, shortages of medicines and diagnostic equipment, breaches of medical confidentiality, and significant barriers to healthcare for prisoners with infectious diseases (e.g. HIV, tuberculosis), disabilities, mental health disorders, cancer, or substance dependence. These failures have a severe impact on prisoners’ health and contribute to a high mortality rate, roughly twice the European average.[2]
At the same time, the Ukrainian judiciary continues to treat medical release as an act of leniency rather than as a legal safeguard of the rights to life and to protection from inhuman treatment. Courts apply the mechanism in an overly restrictive manner, and judicial practice differs significantly across jurisdictions. The procedure is affected by both substantial flaws (including courts’ heavy reliance on a list of diseases, in breach of ECtHR case law, and inconsistent interpretation of eligibility criteria across jurisdictions) and procedural deficiencies (such as non-compliance with time limits, the failure of the prison administration to initiate release procedures for eligible prisoners, and the routine lodging of appeals by prosecutors against release decisions).
Despite formal strategies and reform plans (including the Strategy for Reforming the Prison System until 2026 and the Rule of Law Roadmap), the transfer of medical functions from the prison service to the Ministry of Health remains at a standstill. The pilot phase intended to precede the full transfer has not begun and is now planned for the second quarter of 2027. As a result, medical staff remain institutionally dependent on the prison administration, harming the doctor-patient relationship and weakening accountability for ill-treatment. This reform has long been required by the CPT and forms part of the EU monitoring process linked to Ukraine’s accession.[3]
Lastly, we argue that the new complaint mechanisms available to individuals held in inadequate detention conditions are ineffective. A year after its entry into force, the preventive remedy has not provided relief to a single prisoner (despite 70+ complaints being lodged), as acknowledged by the Ukrainian authorities. The commissions in charge of reviewing complaints are largely composed of members of the prison administration, which undermines their independence and credibility. The compensatory remedy is not yet in force.
[1] Our submission concerns specifically the groups of cases Logvinenko v. Ukraine, no. 41203/16, 16 May 2019 and Isayev v. Ukraine, no. 28827/02, 28 May 2009 (systemic inadequacy of medical care in detention, particularly regarding infectious diseases, drug addiction, and physical disability, and the absence of effective preventive and compensatory remedies), as well as the group of cases Kats v. Ukraine, no. 29971/04, 12 December 2008 (authorities’ failure to protect detainees’ lives due to inadequate medical care and denial of urgent hospitalisation).
[2] Marcelo F. Aebi & Edoardo Cocco, Prison Populations, SPACE I – 2024, PC-CP (2024) 5, 24 September 2025, p. 109: in 2023, Ukraine’s mortality rate was of 85.4 per 10,000 prisoners, while the European average was of 45.6 per 10,000 inmates. According to the figures gathered by Donetsk Memorial, the mortality rate has further increased in 2024, reaching 99.1 per 10,000 prisoners.
[3] CPT, Report on visit to Ukraine (16-27 October 2023), CPT/Inf (2024) 20, 26 April 2024, para. 75: “In the report on its 2017 periodic visit to Ukraine, the CPT had called upon the authorities to step up their efforts to transfer the responsibility for prison healthcare services from the Ministry of Justice to the Ministry of Health. The Committee regrets to note that there has been no progress in the implementation of this long-standing plan”. European Commission, Ukraine 2025 Report, SWD(2025) 759 final, 4 November 2025, p. 42: “The recommendations of the CPT to transfer responsibility for prison healthcare to the Ministry of Health have yet to be implemented.”