Prohibition of imprisonment for debt (Article 1 of Additional Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR)

No one shall be deprived of his liberty merely on the ground of inability to fulfil a contractual obligation.

Article 1 of Additional Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR concerns the cases where a failure to meet contractual or public obligations is established. Therefore, Article 1 of Additional Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR is not applicable in cases where an action or a failure to take action is not of a contractual nature but of a criminal nature (for example, a fraud) and where a criminal sanction, namely imprisonment, may be imposed.²⁰⁴⁰ Likewise, Article 1 of Additional Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR does not protect an individual from being imposed a sentence of imprisonment, as an alternative to pecuniary sanction that may be imposed by a criminal court in cases where a person fails to pay a fine. Besides, the legal possibility to impose a sentence of imprisonment as an alternative punishment is consistent with Article 5(1)(a) of the ECHR and Article 1 of Additional Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR in cases where the judge conducts a fair trial in accordance with the law.²⁰⁴¹