The European Regional System 2 classified differently in the future.” The Court took the view that “the increasingly high standard being required in the area of the protection of human rights and fundamental liberties correspondingly and inevitably requires greater firmness in assessing breaches of the fundamental values of democratic societies.”276 Thus, the Court is not bound to follow its previous decisions, but is free to re-evaluate case law and extend the scope of Article 3 to acts which had not previously been regarded as torture or ill-treatment.277 2.1.2 Inhuman treatment In The Greek Case, the Commission drew a distinction not only between torture and the other forms of ill-treatment, but also between inhuman treatment and degrading treatment. The Commission defined inhuman treatment as “at least such treatment as deliberately causes severe suffering, mental or physical, which in the particular situation is unjustifiable.”278 Furthermore, in the later case Ireland v UK, the Commission expressed the view that “any definition of the provisions of Article 3 of the Convention must start from the notion of inhuman treatment.”279 However, the Court and Commission have given fewer definitions of inhuman treatment than the other prohibited acts. Inhuman treatment can be defined by reference to the other forms of ill-treatment; it is such treatment as is not sufficiently severe, or without the purposive element, to constitute torture, but yet which crosses the upper ‘severity threshold’ of degrading treatment.280 The judgement in Campbell and Cosans v UK illustrates both this somewhat ambiguous approach to the definition of inhuman treatment, and the Court’s ‘threshold of severity’ approach to the prohibited acts.281 This case involved a threat to use corporal punishment on two school boys. The punishment did not in fact take place, but the Court nevertheless stated that “provided it is sufficiently real and immediate a mere threat of conduct prohibited by Article 3 may itself be in conflict with the provision. Thus to threaten an individual with torture might in some circumstances constitute at least ‘inhuman treatment’.”282 Selmouni v France (1999), op. cit., §102. See for example Henaf v France, no. 65436/01, ECHR 2003-XI, judgement of 27 November 2003, §55. 278 The Greek Case (1969), op. cit. 279 Ireland v UK, no. 5310/71, Commission Report (Series B) Vol. 23-I, 1976, §389. 280 See M. Evans and R. Morgan, Preventing Torture, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998, p. 93. 281 Campbell and Cosans v UK, nos. 7511/76 and 7743/76, ECHR (Series A) No. 48, judgement of 25 February 1982. 282 Ibid. § 26. The Court held that the threat of punishment was not sufficiently severe to constitute torture or inhuman treatment, nor did it humiliate or debase the boys sufficiently to 276 277 60