Politie in Moldavië martelt 17-jarige dief de rolstoel in, Mensenrechtenhof kent 20.000 euro boete toe (en)

Press release issued by the Registrar

CHAMBER JUDGMENT - CORSACOV v. MOLDOVA

The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment [1] in the case of Corsacov v. Moldova (application no. 18944/02).

The Court held unanimously that there had been:

• • 

  a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of torture) of the European Convention on Human Rights concerning the treatment of the applicant by the police;

• • 

  a violation of Article 3 of the Convention in respect of the failure to conduct an effective investigation into the applicant’s complaints;

• • 

  a violation of Article 13 (right to an effective remedy).

Under Article 41 (just satisfaction), the Court awarded the applicant 20,000 euros (EUR) for non-pecuniary damage and EUR 1,000 for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in English.)

• 1. 

  Principal facts

The applicant, Mihai Corsacov, is a Moldovan national who was born in 1981 and lives in C?rpineni (Moldova).

On 9 July 1998 the applicant, who was seventeen years old at the time, was arrested on charges of theft. On the way to the police car, he tried to rid himself of a pocket knife and was thrown to the ground by the two arresting officers. According to the applicant, he was then handcuffed and assaulted all the way to the police station. At the police station he was further assaulted. In particular he maintained that he was kicked, punched and beaten with batons all over his body and on the soles of his feet. He also alleged that he was suspended on a metal bar for a long period of time. The Government denied these allegations.

The next day he claimed he was taken to a forest to assist in the reconstruction of the crime. He alleged he was beaten up on the way to the forest and that one of the officers put a gun to his head and threatened to shoot him if he did not confess. He was released from detention that evening.

The applicant confessed to having committed the theft, however, the criminal proceedings against him were later dropped.

He spent approximately 70 days in hospital at different periods between July and November 1998 as a result of his injuries. Medical reports established that the applicant had been beaten with blunt objects about the head and on the sole of his left foot and that his injuries could not have been sustained as a result of a fall. As a consequence of the beatings, he suffered acute head trauma and concussion. He had numerous bruises on his face, around his right ear and on the sole of his left foot tympanic membrane was perforated as a result of his injuries. He also suffered sudden deafness which later led to diminished hearing. His state of health declined to such an extent that he was registered as having second-degree invalidity status, which, under Moldovan law, corresponds to a loss of working capacity of 50-75%.

On 13 July 1998 the applicant’s mother requested the opening of criminal proceedings against the police officers concerned. The investigation lasted for more than three years, during which period it was closed and re-opened at least 12 times. The authorities concluded each time that the applicant’s injuries were caused by his head hitting the ground when he was tackled by police officers after his arrest. They also found that the police officers had acted lawfully in view of the threat posed by the applicant who was armed with a knife. The investigation has subsequently been reopened and is still pending.

• 2. 

  Procedure and composition of the Court

The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 6 August 2001 and declared admissible on 13 September 2005.

Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:

Nicolas Bratza (British), President,

Giovanni Bonello (Maltese),

Kristaq Traja (Albanian),

Stanislav Pavlovschi (Moldovan),

Lech Garlicki (Polish),

Ljiljana Mijovi? (citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina),

Ján Šikuta (Slovakian), judges,

and also Michael O’Boyle, Deputy Registrar.

• 3. 

  Summary of the judgment [2]

Complaints

The applicant alleged that he was subjected to severe police brutality, that the authorities failed to carry out an adequate investigation into the incident and that he was denied an effective remedy. He relied on Articles 3 and 13.

Decision of the Court

Article 3

Ill-treatment by the police

The Court found that the Moldovan Government had failed to prove that the applicant’s injuries had not been sustained by ill-treatment in police custody and referred in particular to the conclusions established in the medical reports.

The Court noted that the applicant suffered very serious injuries which caused him to be hospitalised and which had had further repercussions on his health. The Court also attached great importance to the applicant’s young age which made him particularly vulnerable in the face of his aggressors. However, it found that the decisive element in determining the form of ill-treatment was the practice of falaka (beating of the soles) to which the applicant was subjected. The Court found that that was a particularly reprehensible form of ill-treatment which presupposed an intention to obtain information, inflict punishment or intimidate. The Court therefore concluded that the violence inflicted upon the applicant could be considered as acts of torture and held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 3.

Failure to carry out an effective investigation

The Court considered that the investigation was characterised by a number of serious and unexplained omissions and ended with decisions which contained inconsistencies and conclusions which were not supported by any careful analysis of the facts. In particular it noted that the domestic authorities did not account for the discrepancy between the conclusions of the medical reports, which clearly stated that the injuries could only have been sustained as a result of beating and the versions of the facts presented by the police officers. In addition, no explanation was given regarding the origin of bruises on the sole of the applicant’s foot, and no investigation was made into the applicant’s allegation about the threat to shoot him in the head. Accordingly, the Court held unanimously that there had also been a violation of Article 3 in respect of the failure to conduct an effective investigation into the applicant’s complaints about his ill-treatment by the police.

Article 13

The Court noted that since the criminal investigation conducted by the domestic authorities concluded that the actions of the police officers were legal, any civil action against them would have been ineffective. Given the circumstance of the case, the Court concluded that the applicant did not have an effective remedy under domestic law to claim compensation for his ill-treatment. It therefore found unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 13.

***

The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site (http://www.echr.coe.int).

Press contacts:

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Stéphanie Klein (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 88 41 21 54)

Beverley Jacobs (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 54 21)

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. Since 1 November 1998 it has sat as a full-time Court composed of an equal number of judges to that of the States party to the Convention. The Court examines the admissibility and merits of applications submitted to it. It sits in Chambers of 7 judges or, in exceptional cases, as a Grand Chamber of 17 judges. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe supervises the execution of the Court’s judgments.

[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.

[2] This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.