Dignità umana e tutela dei detenuti nello “Spazio di giustizia” dell’Unione europea

The article aims to show how, more than twenty years after the Tampere
European Council and more than ten years after the recognition of the binding legal
force of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the goal of a
European area of (Freedom, Security and) Justice is still a work in progress. In fact,
this is an objective that can only be fully achieved by overcoming certain critical
issues that still persist and hamper its full implementation. In this context, the article
examines the often-conflicting relationship between prison treatment and detention
conditions on the one hand and the protection of the rights and human dignity of
prisoners on the other. Through an examination of European jurisprudence
(especially of the ECJ and only indirectly – if invoked – of the ECHR), the article
shows how the situation of impasse in which Italy (amongst others EU States) has
found itself for years in dealing with the problem of prison overcrowding, could
perhaps be addressed by co-ordinated action from the Council of Europe and the
European Union.