JALLOH v. GERMANY JUDGMENT
19
cited above, § 24). In order for a punishment or treatment associated with it
to be “inhuman” or “degrading”, the suffering or humiliation involved must
in any event go beyond that inevitable element of suffering or humiliation
connected with a given form of legitimate treatment or punishment (see
Labita, cited above, § 120).
69. With respect to medical interventions to which a detained person is
subjected against his or her will, Article 3 of the Convention imposes an
obligation on the State to protect the physical well-being of persons
deprived of their liberty, for example by providing them with the requisite
medical assistance. The persons concerned nevertheless remain under the
protection of Article 3, whose requirements permit of no derogation
(Mouisel, cited above, § 40, and Naumenko, cited above, § 112). A measure
which is of therapeutic necessity from the point of view of established
principles of medicine cannot in principle be regarded as inhuman and
degrading (see, in particular, Herczegfalvy v. Austria, 24 September 1992,
§ 82, Series A no. 244, and Naumenko, cited above, § 112). This can be
said, for instance, about force-feeding that is aimed at saving the life of a
particular detainee who consciously refuses to take food. The Court must
nevertheless satisfy itself that a medical necessity has been convincingly
shown to exist and that procedural guarantees for the decision, for example
to force-feed, exist and are complied with (see Nevmerzhitsky v. Ukraine,
no. 54825/00, § 94, ECHR 2005-II).
70. Even where it is not motivated by reasons of medical necessity,
Articles 3 and 8 of the Convention do not as such prohibit recourse to a
medical procedure in defiance of the will of a suspect in order to obtain
from him evidence of his involvement in the commission of a criminal
offence. Thus, the Convention institutions have found on several occasions
that the taking of blood or saliva samples against a suspect’s will in order to
investigate an offence did not breach these Articles in the circumstances of
the cases examined by them (see, inter alia, X v. the Netherlands,
no. 8239/78, Commission decision of 4 December 1978, Decisions and
Reports (DR) 16, pp. 187-89, and Schmidt v. Germany (dec.), no. 32352/02,
5 January 2006).
71. However, any recourse to a forcible medical intervention in order to
obtain evidence of a crime must be convincingly justified on the facts of a
particular case. This is especially true where the procedure is intended to
retrieve from inside the individual’s body real evidence of the very crime of
which he is suspected. The particularly intrusive nature of such an act
requires a strict scrutiny of all the surrounding circumstances. In this
connection, due regard must be had to the seriousness of the offence in
issue. The authorities must also demonstrate that they took into
consideration alternative methods of recovering the evidence. Furthermore,
the procedure must not entail any risk of lasting detriment to a suspect’s
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