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401 19.5.2009   Press release issued by the Registrar   Chamber judgment concerning Serbia   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing the following Chamber judgment which is not final[1]. (The judgment is available only in English.)     Violation of Article 8 Stojanovic v. Serbia (application no. 34425/04) The applicant, Ljubiša Stojanović, is a Serbian national who was born in 1956. The case concerned Mr Stojanović’s complaint that, while serving a prison sentence, the authorities refused to provide him with free dentures. He also complained that the prison authorities opened his correspondence with domestic bodies and the European Court of Human Rights. He relied on Articles 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), 8 (right to respect for correspondence) and Article 1 of Protocol No. 12 (general prohibition of discrimination) to the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court noted that Mr Stojanovic had in fact been provided with dentures free of charge in June 2007. It therefore found that that part of the applicant’s complaint could now be considered resolved and decided unanimously to strike it out of the case. The Court also held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 8 as it considered that the prison authorities’ interference with the applicant’s correspondence had not been in accordance with domestic law at the relevant time; it found that that finding of a violation constituted in itself sufficient just satisfaction for any non-pecuniary damage sustained by the applicant. The remainder of the application was declared inadmissible.     ***   This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court. The full texts of the Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site (http://www.echr.coe.int).   Press contacts Stefano Piedimonte (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 04) Tracey Turner-Tretz (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 30) Paramy Chanthalangsy (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 88 41 28 30) Kristina Pencheva-Malinowski (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 70) Céline Menu-Lange (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 90 21 58 77)   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. [1] Under Article 43 of the European Convention on Human Rights, within three months from the date of a Chamber judgment, any party to the case may, in exceptional cases, request that the case be referred to the 17‑member Grand Chamber of the Court. In that event, a panel of five judges considers whether the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention or its protocols, or a serious issue of general importance, in which case the Grand Chamber will deliver a final judgment. If no such question or issue arises, the panel will reject the request, at which point the judgment becomes final. Otherwise Chamber judgments become final on the expiry of the three-month period or earlier if the parties declare that they do not intend to make a request to refer.