Azzolina and Others v. Italy

Avrupa İnsan Hakları Mahkemesi

Karar Metni

Information Note on the Court’s case-law 211

October 2017

Azzolina and Others v. Italy - 28923/09 and 67599/10

Judgment 26.10.2017 [Section I]

Article 3

Torture

Effective investigation

Acts of torture of demonstrators held in police custody during G8 summit: violation

Facts – The applicants were arrested in various parts of the city of Genoa during the “G8” Summit in 2001, during which an Anti-Globalisation Summit and various demonstrations had been organised, and taken to a barracks which was being used as a provisional place of detention. There they were subjected to acts of violence, humiliations and other forms of ill-treatment.

In Cestaro v. Italy (6884/11, 7 April 2015, Information Note 184), which concerned another episode of violent acts committed by the security forces during the same Summit, the Court found a violation of both the substantive and procedural limbs of Article 3. It found that the acts concerned amounted to torture and emphasised the shortcomings of the relevant criminal legislation.

Law – Article 3

(a) Substantive limb – The Court referred to the facts established by the domestic courts, which were not contradicted by any of the documents in the case file:

– as soon as they arrived at the barracks the applicants were forbidden to look up at the officers surrounding them; some of them had an “X” drawn with a marker on their cheeks; all of them were forced to stand motionless with their arms and legs apart, facing the fences inside the barracks; they were forced to continue to stand in the same humiliating position inside their cells;

– inside the barracks the applicants were forced to walk bent over forwards with their heads down; in that position they had to go through the “officers’ tunnel”, that is to say a corridor in the barracks where the police officers stood along both sides threatening and striking them and shouting political and sexual insults at them;

– during the medical examinations the applicants were subjected to comments, humiliations and sometimes threats from the medical staff and the police officers present;

– the applicants’ personal effects were confiscated, and even randomly destroyed;

– since the barracks were so small and the violent acts so frequent, all the police officers present were aware of the violence committed by their colleagues and/or subordinates;

– the impugned facts cannot be seen as having been limited in time, occurring during a period when such abusive behaviour might have been caused (although not justified) by high tension and inflamed passions: the events continued over a long period, that is to say between the night from 20 to 21 July and on 23 July, which means that several police teams were successively on duty in the barracks without any significant decrease in the frequency or intensity of the episodes of violence.

The applicants, who put up no physical resistance, sustained a continuous and systematic succession of acts of violence which caused intense physical and psychological suffering. Far from being sporadic, the physical and psychological violence was indiscriminate, constant and to some extent organised, which led to à “kind of dehumanising process reducing the individual to an object on which to exercise violence”.

These episodes took place in a deliberately tense, confused and noisy environment, with the officers yelling at the individuals arrested and occasionally singing fascist anthems.

The police officers present, from the lower ranks up to the command level, seriously violated their primary ethical duty to protect persons who had been placed under their supervision and were in a situation of vulnerability.

It is impossible to overlook the symbolic dimension of those acts or the fact that the applicants were not only the direct victims of ill-treatment but also the powerless witnesses of the uncontrolled use of violence against the other persons arrested.

The applicants, who were treated like objects, spent their whole period of detention in a “lawless” environment where the most basic safeguards had been suspended. The aforementioned violence was compounded with other infringements of the applicants’ rights:

– none of them was able to contact a relative, a lawyer of their choosing or, where appropriate, a consular representative;

– their personal effects were destroyed in their presence;

– no access was allowed to toilets; in any case the applicants were deterred from trying to access the toilets by the insults, violence and humiliation undergone by those who did request such access;

– the lack of food and bedding, even if this was due to logistical failings rather than any deliberate decision, had further intensified their distress and suffering.

Those repeated acts of violence, reflecting a desire for punishment and revenge, should be considered as acts of torture.

Conclusion: violation (unanimously).

(b) Procedural limb – While noting the entry into force in 2017 of new legislation, which is inapplicable to the facts in the present case, creating a specific offence of “torture”, the Court considered, on grounds similar to those set out in Cestaro, that the respondent State had failed to provide an appropriate criminal and disciplinary response to the acts of torture. Among other matters, it noted the failure to suspend those concerned from duty during the criminal proceedings.

Conclusion: violation (unanimously).

Article 41: EUR 85,000 awarded to the first applicant and EUR 80,000 to each of the other applicants, in respect of non-pecuniary damage, the advances awarded by the domestic courts being deducted where they had already been paid; claim in respect of pecuniary damage rejected.

(The Court reached the same conclusions in two other judgments delivered on the same date: Blair and Others v. Italy (1442/14 et al.), concerning the same barracks; and Cirino and Renne v. Italy (2539/13 and 4705/13), concerning a prison)

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