Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 136
December 2010
Jasinskis v. Latvia - 45744/08
Judgment 21.12.2010 [Section III]
Article 2
Positive obligations
Article 2-1
Effective investigation
Inadequate medical treatment of a deaf and mute man in police custody: violations
Facts – After a night of drinking with friends, the applicant’s son, who was deaf and mute, fell down a flight of stairs, injuring his head and losing consciousness for several minutes. The police called to the scene were informed of the events and of the son’s sensory disabilities. They took him to the police station to sober up, without waiting for an ambulance which had also meanwhile been called. The police officer on duty noted a graze on the son’s face, but when the ambulance crew contacted the police they were informed that no medical examination was needed since the son was simply intoxicated. After being locked up in a cell, the son knocked on the doors and walls for a while, but to no avail. He had no means of communicating with the police officers since none of them appeared to understand sign language and the notepad which he normally used to communicate had been taken away from him. The following morning, seven hours after taking him into custody, the police officers unsuccessfully tried to wake the applicant’s son up, but although he managed to open his eyes he was otherwise unresponsive. Another seven hours later, after finding that the son had been “sleeping for too long”, the police called an ambulance and he was finally taken to hospital only after repeated requests by the applicant. He died several hours later and a subsequent autopsy confirmed multiple injuries to the head and brain as the cause of death.
In the course of the subsequent investigation, an expert report was issued on the quality of the medical care that had been provided to the applicant’s son. It noted several shortcomings in his treatment at the police station, such as a lack of information on his condition during his detention and the delays in calling an ambulance. The police department where the son had been detained also launched an internal inquiry into the circumstances of his death. However, it terminated the investigation on three occasions, concluding that the officers on duty had acted in line with the applicable laws and regulations. Each of those decisions was subsequently quashed by the competent public prosecutor’s office. After the third decision to terminate the investigation and at the insistence of the applicant, the case was finally submitted to the Bureau of Internal Security for further investigation. Having heard further witnesses, the Bureau ultimately decided to terminate the investigation, finding that the police had acted with due care. The applicant’s appeals against that decision were dismissed.
Law – Article 2
(a) Substantive aspect – The Court noted that persons with disabilities were particularly vulnerable when in custody and that the police had been properly informed of the applicant’s son’s sensory disabilities and of his injury. However, they had not had him medically examined when they took into custody, as they were specifically required to do by the standards of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT). Nor had they given him any opportunity to provide information about his state of health, even after he kept knocking on the doors and the walls of the sobering-up cell. Taking into account that he was deaf and mute, the police had a clear obligation under the domestic legislation and international standards, including the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, to at least provide him with a pen and paper to enable him to communicate his concerns. Finally, it was of particular concern that almost seven hours had passed between the son’s “refusing to wake up” and an ambulance being called. Not getting up for some fourteen hours could hardly be explained by simple drunkenness. In conclusion, given their failure to seek a medical opinion or to call an ambulance for almost seven hours after failing to awake the victim, the police had failed to fulfil their duty to safeguard his life.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
(b) Procedural aspect – The initial investigation into the son’s death was conducted by the very same authority which had been implicated in the events resulting in the death. It could not, therefore, be said to have been effective since it did not comply with the minimum standard of investigatory independence. The investigation had then been taken over by the Bureau of Internal Security, which questioned the five police officers who had been present at the police station in the days prior to the death and drew its own conclusions, which coincided with those reached by the implicated police department’s internal inquiry. Without drawing general conclusions about the independence of the Bureau, the Court considered that the investigation it had carried out was defective for several reasons. Firstly, it was not until some eighteen months after the death that the investigation was transferred away from the institution implicated in the events and the Bureau did not adopt its decision until almost a year later still. A more prompt reaction by an independent authority would have enabled more evidence to be gathered, for instance, from the pathologist who performed the autopsy or from the scene of the son’s fall or the cell where he was detained. Secondly, the investigation carried out by the Bureau failed to provide answers to several questions that would have been crucial in determining the individual responsibility of the police officers, for example, regarding the quality of the medical treatment in the sobering-up centre. Nor had the investigators assessed whether refusing to have the son medically examined on his arrest and subsequently delaying him medical assistance were compatible with the police’s duties under domestic law and the special needs of persons with disabilities. Lastly, the Court could not disregard the fact that responsibility for the investigation had been passed back and forth between the police and various prosecutors’ offices three times.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41: EUR 50,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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