The European Court of Human Rights and life imprisonment

This paper is focused on analysing and discussing the standards established by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) concerning prisoners serving life sentences. The article begins by outlining the general standards for implementing life imprisonment established over the years by the ECtHR, based on complaints from life-sentenced prisoners across all Council of Europe countries. In the second part, the article examines 23 specific cases of Polish prisoners serving life sentences who have lodged complaints against Poland. The analysis addresses the causes of violations of specific articles of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and considers the number of damages awarded under Article 41 of the ECHR, as well as the length of time the Court took to process complaints from Polish prisoners serving life sentences.