Published on 23 March 2026
FIFTH SECTION
Application no. 22390/25
L.B.
against the Czech Republic
lodged on 16 July 2025
communicated on 2 March 2026
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the alleged long‑term physical and psychological violence that applicant had suffered, both as a child and as an adult, at the hands of her father.
In March 2023, the applicant lodged a criminal complaint listing multiple physical assaults perpetrated against her by her father in 2018 (when she was 17 years old), psychological violence, including threats and verbal attacks related to her gender identity, as well as economic abuse. She also reported several incidents of physical violence against her mother that she had personally witnessed, the last one of which had happened shortly before lodging the complaint.
The police set the case aside. The most recent attack against the applicant’s mother was classified as an allegation of bodily harm requiring the victim’s consent for prosecution, which the mother had refused to give. The acts allegedly committed against the applicant were forwarded to administrative authorities as allegations of a misdemeanour. While the police did not question that the incidents had occurred as described, it concluded that the violence had arisen from a conflictual family environment and considered the father’s actions partly caused by his difficulties in accepting the applicant’s gender identity. Furthermore, it found that the physical violence the applicant had suffered in 2018 could not have been a ground for initiating criminal proceedings, as the father had already been sanctioned for it in misdemeanour proceedings.
The applicant lodged requests for review to the District and Regional Prosecutors claiming, among other things, that the decision not to prosecute her father had been influenced by gender‑based stereotypes. The prosecutors dismissed her requests, endorsing the police’s conclusion that the conflicts had been mutual. The Constitutional Court dismissed her constitutional appeal as manifestly ill‑founded by a decision no. II. ÚS 690/24 of 12 March 2025, which was served on her lawyer on 20 March 2025.
The applicant complains under Articles 3 and 8 of the Convention that the domestic legal framework and practice did not ensure her effective protection against the domestic violence inflicted by her father, and that the authorities did not conduct an effective investigation into her allegations. She further complains, relying in substance on Article 14 of the Convention, that the authorities had been influenced in their assessment by gender‑based stereotypes.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has the applicant been subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment, in breach of Articles 3 or 8 of the Convention, as a result of the physical and psychological violence allegedly inflicted by her father (see, among others, Valiulienė v. Lithuania, no. 33234/07, § 69, 26 March 2013, and T.M. and C.M. v. the Republic of Moldova, no. 26608/11, § 41, 28 January 2014)?
2. If so, did the authorities comply with their positive obligation to effectively protect the applicant as an alleged victim of domestic violence (see D.M.D. v. Romania, no. 23022/13, § 51, 3 October 2017, and Vieru v. the Republic of Moldova, no. 17106/18, § 78, 19 November 2024)?
In particular,
(i) With regard to the domestic authorities’ refusal to classify the alleged acts of violence as a criminal offence, and the applicant’s inability to bring her case before a court, do the domestic legal framework and practice constitute an effective deterrence against such acts (see D.M.D. v. Romania, no. 23022/13, § 51, 3 October 2017, and, mutatis mutandis, Z v. the Czech Republic, no. 37782/21, §§ 53 and 58, 20 June 2024)?
(ii) Was the domestic authorities’ investigation of the violence allegedly suffered by the applicant effective as required by Articles 3 and 8 of the Convention (see, among others, Buturugă v. Romania, no. 56867/15, § 62, 11 February 2020, and Vučković v. Croatia, no. 15798/20, § 52, 12 December 2023)? In particular, did the domestic authorities sufficiently consider all relevant circumstances in the light of the available evidence (see, mutatis mutandis, Z v. the Czech Republic, no. 37782/21, § 57, 20 June 2024)? Did they give relevant and sufficient reasons for dismissing the applicant’s allegations of domestic violence?
3. Has the applicant exhausted the effective domestic remedies, as required under Article 35 § 1 of the Convention, with regard to her complaint of discrimination based on gender? In particular, did she raise that complaint before the relevant domestic authorities at least in substance (see Radomilja and Others v. Croatia [GC], nos. 37685/10 and 22768/12, § 117, 20 March 2018, and Kandarakis v. Greece, nos. 48345/12 and 2 others, § 77, 11 June 2020)?
4. If so, has there been a violation of Article 14 of the Convention, taken in conjunction with Articles 3 and 8 of the Convention, on account of the alleged gender-based stereotypes underlying the police decision to set the applicant’s criminal complaint aside (see Eremia v. the Republic of Moldova, no. 3564/11, § 89, 28 May 2013)?