Summary:

I.
The applicants in the various constitutional complaint proceedings are long-term prisoners who have been detained for more than seven, twelve or fourteen years of imprisonment. The applicants had each requested short leave under escort for preserving their practical ability to live in freedom. Their requests had been rejected by the respective prisons. The applicants’ legal recourse against the decisions of the prisons remained unsuccessful.

II.
The Federal Constitutional Court decided that the constitutional complaints were admissible and well-founded.

The decisions are based on the following considerations:
The fundamental right under Article 2.1 in conjunction with Article 1.1 of the Basic Law obliges the state to orient the penal system towards the aim of enabling the detained person to live in freedom without punishment in the future. Especially in the case of persons who have been in prison for many years, this requires actively counteracting the harmful effects of deprivation of liberty and maintaining and consolidating their ability to live in freedom. The requirement to maintain and consolidate the prisoner's ability to live in freedom is not only relevant when he already shows signs of depravation due to imprisonment. The prisoner's interest in being protected from the harmful consequences of long imprisonment and in maintaining their ability to live in freedom in the event of release from prison increases with the duration of the sentence. The threat and execution of the prison sentence are constitutionally complemented by adequate treatment. Accordingly, the legislature has based the execution of the prison sentence on a treatment and reintegration concept. Provisions on the relaxation of detention conditions aim at the reintegration of prisoners. These measures also give prisoners the opportunity to prove themselves and to obtain more favourable release prognoses. If a prisoner applies for such measures, their refusal will affect them in their interest in rehabilitation protected by Article 2.1 of the Basic Law in conjunction with Article 1.1 of the Basic Law. Especially in the case of prisoners who do not yet fulfil the requirements for relaxation measures, for example due to a specific risk of flight or abuse, short leaves under escort serve to maintain and consolidate their ability to live in freedom. Thus, even if there is no concrete prospect of release in the case of prisoners who have been in prison for many years, it may be necessary to at least allow short leaves under escort and to avert a risk of flight or abuse by means of appropriate security measures. When refusing such a measure, prisons may not limit themselves to general assessments or to merely indicating an abstract risk of abscondence or abuse. Rather, they must, in an overall assessment, present more detailed information on the specific risk of abscondence or abuse that must be related to the individual prisoner. Whether the prisons complied with these requirements, must be reviewed by the competent courts. If a prison refuses to relax the detention conditions on the basis of a presumed risk of abscondence or abuse, the courts will examine whether the prison has correctly interpreted and applied the undefined legal concepts. The assumption of a risk of abscondence or abuse is based on a prognosis decision. Thus, prisons have a certain latitude in that respect – which is constitutionally unobjectionable. That means that they can make several justifiable decisions when they respect the fundamental rights of the prisoner. However, this latitude does not release the competent courts from their duty to review such matters, which is rooted in the rule of law. Accordingly, the court must comprehensively establish the facts of the case and determine whether the prison has completely investigated the facts and thus created a sufficient factual basis for its decision. The Federal Constitutional Court merely examines whether the court has granted the prison too much latitude and has thus failed to recognise the significance and scope of the constitutionally protected right to social reintegration, and whether the challenged decision is unreasonable with respect to the standard of review of the regular courts and thus violates the prohibition of arbitrariness which follows from the general right to equality.
According to these standards, the challenged decisions cannot be upheld. They failed to take account of the weight of the right to social reintegration.