Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 120

June 2009

Beganović v. Croatia - 46423/06

Judgment 25.6.2009 [Section I]

Article 3

Positive obligations

Inactivity of domestic authorities leading to criminal proceedings against applicant’s attackers becoming time-barred: violation

Facts: In December 1999 the applicant, a Croatian national of Roma origin, along with two other friends, physically attacked three minors, who also belonged to the same group of friends. Some months later, on 23 April 2000, a group comprising the victims of the previous attack and four friends, confronted and physically attacked the applicant. During the fight, the applicant pulled out a knife and twice stabbed one of his assailants. Subsequently, another assailant, B.B., hit the applicant on the head with a wooden plank. In April and June 2000 the police interviewed the applicant’s assailants, who submitted that they had decided to carry out a revenge attack against the applicant. The police also interviewed the applicant and two neutral witnesses. In June 2000 the applicant lodged a criminal complaint with the State Attorney’s Office against six identified individuals and a person unknown, alleging that they had assaulted him on 23 April 2000 causing him severe bodily injuries. A medical report was submitted to the police by a hospital in Zagreb where the applicant had been examined after the incident and which described his injuries as grievous – he had been diagnosed with concussion and contusions to the head and body, and had remained in hospital for five days. The police then lodged a criminal complaint against the assailants with the State Attorney’s Office, which decided, in July 2001 and in September 2002 respectively, not to institute criminal proceedings against them as the applicant’s injuries were not grievous and could only have given rise to private prosecution by the victim. The applicant then brought private prosecutions against his assailants. The proceedings against one of them, B.B., were later dismissed by another state attorney who found that domestic legislation required B.B., as a minor, to be prosecuted by the State after all. Criminal proceedings against B.B. were ultimately brought before a juvenile court in February 2002, only to be discontinu