Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 131
June 2010
Gäfgen v. Germany [GC] - 22978/05
Judgment 1.6.2010 [GC]
Article 34
Victim
Acknowledgment by national authorities of inhuman treatment but without compensation or adequate punishment of offenders: victime status upheld
Article 3
Inhuman treatment
Threats of physical harm by police to establish whereabouts of missing child: violation
Article 6
Criminal proceedings
Article 6-1
Fair hearing
Use in trial of evidence obtained under duress: no violation
Facts – In 2002 the applicant suffocated an eleven-year-old boy to death and hid his corpse near a pond. Meanwhile, he sought a ransom from the boy’s parents and was arrested shortly after having collected the money. He was taken to a police station where he was questioned about the victim’s whereabouts. The next day the deputy chief police officer ordered one of his subordinate officers to threaten the applicant with physical pain and, if necessary, to subject him to such pain in order to make him reveal the boy’s location. Following these orders, the police officer threatened the applicant that he would be subjected to considerable pain by a person specially trained for such purposes. Some ten minutes later, for fear of being exposed to such treatment, the applicant disclosed where he had hid the victim’s body. He was then accompanied by the police to the location, where they found the corpse and further evidence against the applicant, such as the tyre tracks of his car. In the subsequent criminal proceedings, a regional court decided that none of his confessions made during the investigation could be used as evidence since they had been obtained under duress contrary to Article 3 of the European Convention. At the trial, the applicant again confessed to murder. The court’s findings were based on that confession and on other evidence, including evidence secured as a result of the statements extracted from the applicant during the investigation. The applicant was ultimately convicted to life imprisonment and his subsequent appeals were dismissed, the Federal Constitutional Court having nonetheless acknowledged that extracting his confession during the investigation constituted a prohibited method of interrogation both under the domestic law and the Convention. In 2004 the two police officers involved in threatening the applicant were convicted of coercion and incitement to coercion while on duty and were given suspended fines of EUR 60 for 60 days and EUR 90 for 120 days, respectively. In 2005 the applicant applied for legal aid in order to bring proceedings against the authorities for compensation for the trauma the investigative methods of the police had caused him. The courts initially dismissed his application, but their decisions were quashed by the Federal Constitutional Court in 2008. At the time of the European Court’s judgment, the remitted proceedings were still pending before the regional court.
Law – Article 34: The national authorities had acknowledged the breach of the Convention both in the criminal proceedings against the applicant and in the subsequent conviction of the police officers. However, it was necessary to establish whether they had afforded the applicant appropriate and sufficient redress for the violation suffered. Although the criminal proceedings against the police officers, which had lasted some two years and three months, had been sufficiently prompt and expeditious, the officers had been sentenced to very modest and suspended fines since the domestic court took into account a number of mitigating circumstances, including the urgent need to save the victim’s life. While the applicant’s case could not be compared to other cases involving arbitrary acts of brutality by State agents, imposing almost token fines could not be considered an adequate response to a breach of Article 3. Such punishment, which was manifestly disproportionate to a breach of one of the core rights of the Convention, did not have the necessary deterrent effect in order to prevent further violations of that right in future difficult situations. Moreover, even though both police officers had initially been transferred to posts which no longer involved direct association with the investigation of criminal offences, one of them had later been appointed chief of his section, which raised serious doubts as to whether the authorities’ reaction adequately reflected the seriousness of a breach of Article 3. Finally, as to the proceedings for compensation, the applicant’s request for legal aid was still pending after over three years. Consequently, no hearing had been held and no judgment given on the merits of his claim. In such circumstances, the domestic courts’ failure to decide the merits of the applicant’s compensation claim without the requisite expedition brought into question the effectiveness of those proceedings. In conclusion, the Court held that the different measures taken by the domestic authorities had failed to comply fully with the requirement of redress as established by its case-law and that, consequently, the applicant could still claim to be the victim of a violation of his Convention right.
Conclusion: victim status upheld (eleven votes to six).
Article 3: It was uncontested between the parties that the applicant was threatened by the police officer with intolerable pain by a person specially trained for such purposes if he refused to disclose the victim’s whereabouts. Since the deputy chief officer had ordered his subordinates on several occasions to threaten the applicant or, if necessary, to use force against him, his order could not be regarded as a spontaneous act, but as a premeditated and calculated one. The interrogation under the threat of ill-treatment had lasted for about ten minutes in an atmosphere of heightened tension and emotions when the officers believed that the victim’s life could still be saved. The applicant was handcuffed and thus in a state of vulnerability, so the threat he had received must have caused him considerable fear, anguish and mental suffering. Despite the police officers’ motives, the Court reiterated that torture and inhuman or degrading treatment could not be inflicted even in circumstances where the life of an individual was at risk. In conclusion, the method of interrogation to which the applicant had been subjected was found to be sufficiently serious to amount to inhuman treatment prohibited by Article 3.
Conclusion: violation (eleven votes to six).
Article 6: The use of evidence obtained by methods in breach of Article 3 raised serious issues regarding the fairness of criminal proceedings. The Court was therefore called upon to determine whether the proceedings against the applicant as a whole had been unfair because such evidence had been used. At the start of his trial, the applicant was informed that his earlier statements would not be used as evidence against him because it had been obtained by coercion. Nonetheless he confessed to the crime again during the trial, stressing that he was confessing freely out of remorse and in order to take responsibility for the crime he had committed. The Court had therefore no reason to assume that the applicant would not have confessed if the domestic courts had decided at the outset to exclude the disputed evidence. In the light of these considerations the Court concluded that, in the particular circumstances of the applicant’s case, the failure of the domestic courts to exclude the evidence obtained following a confession extracted by means of inhuman treatment had not had a bearing on the applicant’s conviction and sentence or on the overall fairness of his trial.
Conclusion: no violation (eleven votes to six).
Article 41: No claim made in respect of damage.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
Click here for the Case-Law Information Notes
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy