Estonia, Legislation

This means that taking a person’s freedom on the basis of assessment that they may have criminal tendencies is not to be allowed.

The Constitution entails a list of bases for taking a person’s freedom, but does not make it possible to detain him or her after serving the term of punishment.

The Supreme Court also noted that the Penal Code does not clearly indicate, when and how should post-punishment detention be applied and it has not been sufficiently clearly regulated how a person’s ‘criminal tendencies’ are to be determined.

“Even crimes previously committed will not be any certain basis to claim that the person may be dangerous in the future. The Supreme Court en banc emphasises that the regulative norms in question make it possible to take a person’s freedom for a long period of time on the basis of a prognosis and hence the definitions in the said norms have to comply with higher standards,” stated the court.

The Supreme Court stated that the fact that the provision regarding post-penal detention was declared invalid does not mean that the developing the current system of sanctions and other measures would be impossible in order to contain the risk emanating from dangerous persons with criminal tendencies. It also noted that in order to increase the overall level of security, the State has to foresee measures decreasing the punished person’s dangerous nature in the course of the sentenced punishment, as provided for in the Imprisonment Act.

The matter was deliberated on by 18 members of the Supreme Court, five of whom wrote dissenting opinions.