ZHIVKO GOSPODINOV AND OTHERS v. BULGARIA - 34639/07 (Judgment : Violation of Prohibition of torture : Degrading treatment Inhuman treatment) No violation of Article 3...)

The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:

��������� Erik M�se, President, ��������� Yonko Grozev, ��������� Gabriele Kucsko-Stadlmayer, judges, and Anne-Marie Dougin, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,

The case originated in ten applications against the Republic of Bulgaria lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (�the Convention�) by ten applicants on different dates. A list of the applicants, the dates of their applications and the names of their representatives, where applicable, have been set out in the appended table .

The Bulgarian Government (�the Government�) were represented by their Agent, Ms A. Panova, of the Ministry of Justice.

On 26 December 2015 the complaints concerning the irreducibility of the whole-life prison sentences, the excessive restrictiveness of the �special regime� under which the applicants had been serving their sentences, the monitoring of correspondence by the prison administration, and the absence of an effective remedy in connection with these two complaints, were communicated to the Government and the remainder of the applications was declared inadmissible pursuant to Rule 54 � 3 of the Rules of Court. The Government submitted observations and information on 15 February 2016.