Communicated on 4 September 2018
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 59144/16
K.M.
against the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
lodged on 7 October 2016
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The applicant, who was fourteen years old at the time, reported to the police an alleged incident of indecent behaviour and use of inappropriate language by Gj.K. who had visited her home as a handyman. In the course of the criminal investigation, the prosecutor established that Gj.K. had touched the applicant’s breast and had caressed her leg. However, he concluded that in the absence of an actual use of force or threat those acts could not have been qualified as rape or any other offence subject to ex officio prosecution, but instead as an insult, which was subject to private prosecution. The applicant’s subsequent civil action against Gj.K. for insult, which could not have been any longer subject to criminal prosecution on account of legislative amendments, was dismissed by two levels of civil courts that held that his actions had not amounted to an insult.
The applicant complains under Article 1 of Protocol No. 12 that her right of protection from sexual harassment was not secured in the civil proceedings for insult and that she was left without legal protection.
QUESTION tO THE PARTIES
Has there been a violation of the applicant’s right to respect for her private life, contrary to Article 8 of the Convention? In particular, did the State fail to discharge its positive obligation to protect the applicant, who was a minor at the time, from the alleged threat to her physical and mental integrity, brought by the impugned situation as established by the public prosecutor (see Söderman v. Sweden [GC], no. 5786/08, §§ 80-85, ECHR 2013; and A, B and C v. Latvia, no. 30808/11, §§ 147-151, 31 March 2016)? Were the civil proceedings for insult the appropriate avenue for the applicant’s grievances?
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