Europe's top rights court on Tuesday condemned Russia's 24-hour camera surveillance of prisoners, ruling that it was an arbitrary violation of their right to privacy.
The European Court of Human Rights also found that two of the three plaintiffs had also been denied their right to an effective legal remedy, after the Russian courts rejected their complaints.
Two prisoners and a former inmate were challenging the practice in Russian prisons of constant surveillance, not just by guards but by closed-circuit cameras inside their cells.
Two of the three plaintiffs, who were held in the same prison, said the cameras installed over the doorway gave a clear view of most of the cell, including the bed.
They also objected that the guards monitoring them on CCTV cameras were often women.
One prisoner filed his case after complaining that he had been forced to undress in front of female prison guards.
The Strasbourg-base court accepted that some surveillance of some parts of prisons might be necessary -- and that some inmates might need to be monitored permanently.
But Russian laws were too vague in this area and "offered virtually no safeguards against abuse by State officials".
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