Information Note on the Court’s case-law 209
July 2017
Rooman v. Belgium - 18052/11
Judgment 18.7.2017 [Section II]
Article 3
Degrading treatment
Failure to ensure detainee’s psychiatric care through an official language of the respondent State: violation
Article 5
Article 5-1-e
Persons of unsound mind
Psychiatric care impaired by linguistic barriers as opposed to institutional shortcomings: no violation
[This case was referred to the Grand Chambre on 11 décembre 2017]
Facts – The applicant, who suffers from a serious mental disorder making him incapable of controlling his actions, has been detained since 2004 in a specialist facility with no German-speaking staff, whereas he himself can only speak German (one of Belgium’s three official languages).
The Mental Health Board found on several occasions that because of the communication difficulties, the applicant was effectively deprived of treatment for his mental health problems (making it impossible to contemplate releasing him), but its recommendations were followed only to a limited extent or belatedly by the authorities. The competent judicial authority reached similar findings in 2014.
Law
Article 3: The argument that there was no causal link between the lack of German-speaking medical staff and the therapeutic difficulties had to be rejected, since all the evidence tended on the contrary to show that the main reason for the lack of therapeutic care for the applicant’s mental health problems was that communication between him and the care staff was impossible.
The efforts made by the mental health bodies to find a solution in the applicant’s case had been thwarted by the authorities’ inaction: not until 2014 had any of the practical measures recommended for years been implemented with the provision of a German-speaking psychologist (an arrangement which, moreover, appeared to have been discontinued at the end of 2015). The applicant’s other contact with qualified German-speaking staff (experts, a nurse and a social worker) had not had a therapeutic purpose.
Taking into account the fact that German was one of the three official languages in Belgium, such shortcomings could be regarded as a failure to provide adequate care for the applicant’s condition. Whatever obstacles the applicant might have created through his own behaviour, they did not release the State from its obligations.
The applicant’s continued detention without appropriate medical support for thirteen years – apart from two periods when a German-speaking psychologist had been made available to him (from May to November 2010 and from July 2014 to the end of 2015) – and without any realistic prospect of change had exceeded the unavoidable level of suffering inherent in detention, thus constituting degrading treatment.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 5 § 1: Notwithstanding the finding under Article 3 that the applicant had not been provided with appropriate care and the duration of that state of affairs (thirteen years), his deprivation of liberty had been lawful in the light of the criteria established in the Court’s case-law concerning sub-paragraph (e):
– the social protection facility in question had in principle been suitably equipped to deal with his mental health and his dangerousness;
– there was still a link between the grounds for the applicant’s detention and his mental illness (since the reasons for the failure to provide appropriate care were unconnected with the actual nature of the detention facility, this link had not been broken).
Conclusion: no violation (six votes to one).
Article 41: EUR 15,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage; claim in respect of pecuniary damage dismissed.
(See also the Factsheet on Detention and mental health and the pilot judgment in W.D. v. Belgium, 73548/13, 6 September 2016, Information Note 199)
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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