Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 166
August-September 2013
Robineau v. France (dec.) - 58497/11
Decision 3.9.2013 [Section V]
Article 2
Positive obligations
Suicide while in custody: inadmissible
Facts – In October 2003 a member of the applicants’ family was taken into police custody. He was subsequently brought before the public prosecutor, who called for the opening of an investigation and for his placement under judicial supervision. As he was authorised to see his lawyer, his police and security escort took him into an ordinary room in the court house. At his lawyer’s request the man’s handcuffs were removed and the two escorting officers left the room so that he and the lawyer could talk in private. They nevertheless kept an eye on him through a glass panel. About twenty minutes into the interview the man got up, went over to the window and jumped to his death.
Law – Article 2: In French law “défèrement” – the time between the formal end of police custody and the moment when the individual is brought before a judge – was undeniably a custodial measure, comparable in practical terms to police custody, the individual concerned remaining in the hands of the investigating authorities, under judicial supervision.
The domestic authorities could not have known the suspect would commit suicide. He had seemed calm to everyone who met him while he was in police custody and during his transfer. The psychiatrist who examined him had found him stable, even noting that he appeared not to be particularly upset by what was happening to him. It was true that the authorities should perhaps have seen a warning sign in the fact that he had refused to eat three of the four meals he was offered at the time. That was not sufficient in itself, however, to alert the investigators or the escorting officers to an imminent risk of suicide. That being so, and there being no other objective grounds to believe that the authorities had known, or should have known, that the man might commit suicide, the positive obligations incumbent on the authorities under Article 2 of the Convention had not required them to take any special measures in this case, other than the basic precautions necessary to protect a person’s life.
Also, although the escorting officers had left the room to allow the suspect to have a private conversation with his lawyer, they had kept an eye on him through a glass panel. The question of the safety of suspects between the end of police custody and their presentation before a judge warranted the introduction of a more precise legal framework, so that it was not left to the police alone to assess the psychological situation of the people they escorted and the risk of their committing suicide. However, as no particular risk had been or ought to have been identified, the precautions taken in this case had been sufficient and the file disclosed no failure by the State to honour its obligations under Article 2 of the Convention.
Lastly, this case differed from that of Eremiášová and Pechová v. the Czech Republic (23944/04, 16 February 2012), where the Court had found a violation of Article 2, particularly its substantive aspect. In that case, where apparently the subject had killed himself while attempting to escape by jumping out of a window, it appeared that the authorities had actually taken steps indicating that they anticipated the possibility of an escape attempt. Furthermore the incident had taken place at a time when the individual concerned was entirely under the supervision of police officers who were escorting him from the toilets to another part of the police station, and not, as in the present case, during an interview with a lawyer, which was by nature confidential.
Conclusion: inadmissible (manifestly ill-founded).
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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