Communicated on 30 August 2019
FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 52053/18
Elisabeth Gertrude EIKENAAR
against the Netherlands
lodged on 5 November 2018
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns an incident which occurred on 23 November 2016 when police entered the home of the applicant’s partner, who was reportedly in a confused state of mind and had been causing a nuisance. The applicant’s partner putting up fierce resistance against his apprehension, the police officers used force, with one of them administering a blow to the back of the head. A short while after the applicant’s partner had been detained in a cell, he died.
The applicants’ subsequent complaint against the public prosecutor’s decision not to institute criminal proceedings on charges of (aggravated) assault against the police officer who had punched her partner in the back of the head was rejected by the Court of Appeal of The Hague on 9 May 2018, which noted that it did not appear from the file that there was a causal connection between the death of the applicant’s partner and the force used against him in his home, and that the applicant had not contended that there was such a connection. The Court of Appeal concluded that although in general force to the head was to be avoided if at all possible and the police officer concerned ought to have refrained from administering the blow to the head of the applicant’s partner, no criminal offence requiring prosecution had been committed having regard to the behaviour of the applicant’s partner, the circumstances of the case, the hectic situation, the intention of the police officers to provide assistance, and the lack of specialist training in this type of case.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
Has the applicant’s partner been subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment, in breach of Article 3 of the Convention? In this connection, did the public prosecutor and subsequently the Court of Appeal of The Hague examine whether the force used by the police officer who administered a blow to the back of the head of the applicant’s partner had been made strictly necessary by the conduct of the latter (see Bouyid v. Belgium [GC], no. 23380/09, §§ 88 and 100, ECHR 2015)?
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy