Published on 15 December 2025
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 12463/24
Kata JOZIĆ and Anđelina DOKIĆ
against Croatia
lodged on 19 April 2024
communicated on 25 November 2025
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns civil proceedings for damages instituted by the applicants against a State-run neuropsychiatric hospital in connection with their mother’s suicide.
In June 2005 the applicants’ mother was admitted to the hospital following a suicide attempt. In August 2005 she committed suicide in the hospital toilet.
In 2008 the applicants lodged a civil action for damages against the hospital, which the first-instance court granted in 2013. In 2015, the second‑instance court overturned that judgment, and dismissed the applicants’ claim. In 2023 the Constitutional Court found a breach of the substantive aspect of Article 2 of the Convention on the grounds that the hospital had failed to undertake adequate measures to prevent the applicants’ mother’s suicide. It quashed the second-instance court’s judgment and instructed the civil courts to rule on the applicants’ compensation claim. In April 2025 the first-instance court awarded the applicants 19,908.42 euros each for non-pecuniary damage. The parties lodged appeals and the proceedings are currently pending before the second-instance court.
Before the Court the applicants complain, under Articles 2 and 6 of the Convention, about an ineffective procedural response of the domestic authorities to their mother’s suicide, and notably about the excessive length of the civil proceedings for damages.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Having regard to the procedural protection of the right to life, was the manner in which the legal mechanisms were applied in the present case by the domestic authorities in breach of Article 2 of the Convention (see de Oliveira v. Portugal [GC], no. 78103/14, § 137, 31 January 2019; Bilbija et Blažević v. Croatia, no. 62870/13, §§ 110 and 112, 12 January 2016; and Fergec v. Croatia, no. 68516/14, §§ 40-41, 9 May 2017)?
2. Does the length of the consideration of the applicants’ civil claim satisfy the requirement of “reasonable time” under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention?