FOURTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 42464/98
by Eelis, Esko and Ulla SARANEN
against Finland
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 15 October 2002 as a Chamber composed of
Sir Nicolas Bratza, President,
Mr M. Pellonpää,
Mr A. Pastor Ridruejo,
Mrs V. Strážnická,
Mr R. Maruste,
Mr S. Pavlovschi,
Mr L. Garlicki, judges,
and Mr M. O’Boyle, Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged with the European Commission of Human Rights on 17 March 1997,
Having regard to Article 5 § 2 of Protocol No. 11 to the Convention, by which the competence to examine the application was transferred to the Court,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicants,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicants, Eelis, Esko and Ulla Saranen are Finnish nationals, who were born in 1979, 1930 and 1953 respectively and are living in Halkivaha. They were represented before the Court initially by Mr Pauli Kiviharju and subsequently by Mr Tomi Vähätalo, both lawyers practising in Tampere. The respondent Government were represented by their Agent, Mr Arto Kosonen, Director in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
The first applicant is the son of the second and the third applicant. Following his pre-trial detention in January 1995 he was, in March 1995, placed in compulsory care under the Mental Health Act (mielenterveyslaki, mentalvårdslag 1116/1990), having been diagnosed as suffering from an unspecified psychosis. Having escaped from a hospital in May 1995, he committed an assault with which he was charged before the Toijala District Court (käräjäoikeus, tingsrätt). He was returned to the hospital, where his compulsory care was extended. This order was confirmed by the Häme County Administrative Court (lääninoikeus, länsrätt) on 17 August 1995. The applicants’ appeal was dismissed by the Supreme Administrative Court (korkein hallinto-oikeus, högsta förvaltningsdomstolen) on 13 December 1995.
In the criminal proceedings the District Court ordered a full examination of the first applicant’s mental state. In light of the resultant opinion the National Board of Medico-Legal Affairs (terveydenhuollon oikeusturvakeskus, rättskyddscentralen för hälsovården; “the Medico-Legal Board”), in March 1996, ordered his compulsory care in accordance with section 8 as well as section 17, subsection 1, of the Mental Health Act. He was diagnosed as suffering from behavioural disturbances and from an unspecified psychosis.
The applicants appealed to the Supreme Administrative Court, requesting an oral hearing and arguing, inter alia, that they had not been properly heard before the Medico-Legal Board’s decision. They further requested that the compulsory care order be revoked as being unjustified, as the first applicant had been diagnosed as suffering from a mere mental disturbance and not from a mental illness proper. In the alternative, the applicants requested that the first applicant be ordered to receive care on a ward for young persons.
In its opinion to the court the Medico-Legal Board argued, inter alia, that the Mental Health Act stipulated that the Board should neither hear the parents of an accused minor, nor decide on the actual premises where an accused was to receive compulsory care. The applicants commented on the Board’s opinion on 18 June 1996.
In its decision of 23 December 1996 the Supreme Administrative Court recorded that it had taken account of its previous decision of 13 December 1995 and the documentation placed on file in the proceedings ending with that decision. It found it unnecessary to hold an oral hearing, as the written evidence produced was sufficient. It declined jurisdiction to examine the appeal in so far as it concerned the premises where the first applicant’s care should be implemented as well as the manner in which the care should be provided. The court nonetheless stated that according to section 8, subsection 3, of the Mental Health Act a minor was to be cared for separately from adult patients, unless the contrary was deemed to be in his or her own interests.
The remainder of the applicants’ appeal was dismissed. The court noted that section 17, subsection 1, of the Mental Health Act did not stipulate any obligation for the Medico-Legal Board to hear the parents of an accused minor. The obligation – prescribed in section 8 of the said Act – to examine adequately the conditions for any compulsory care nonetheless entailed an obligation to hear the parents of a minor whose compulsory care was being contemplated. For this reason, and taking into account section 11, subsection 1, of the Mental Health Act as well as section 15 of the Administrative Procedure Act (hallintomenettelylaki, lagen om förvaltningsförfarande 598/1982), the Medico-Legal Board should have heard the second and the third applicant before taking its decision of 27 March 1996. The court considered, however, that the Medico-Legal Board’s obligation to hear those applicants had been unclear. The second and the third applicant had been able to convey their views on the compulsory care order both in their appeal and in their reply to the Medico-Legal Board’s opinion to the court. There was therefore no reason to quash the Board’s decision as having been made without conforming to the relevant procedural provisions.
As regards the justification of the care order, the court found, on the basis of the evidence produced, that at the time of the Medico-Legal Board’s decision the first applicant had been so disturbed as to suffer from a psychosis, thus being mentally ill within the meaning of section 8, subsection 1, of the Mental Health Act. The other conditions for his compulsory care, as stipulated in section 8, had also been met.
The applicants requested a re-opening of the proceedings, arguing that the Medico-Legal Board and the Supreme Administrative Court had not conformed to the relevant procedural provisions in reaching their decisions of 1996. On 31 December 1997 the court dismissed this request, finding no violation of procedural rules. The decisions of 1996 had been neither based on a manifestly incorrect application of the law nor on an error which could have influenced the decisions significantly.
COMPLAINTS
1. The applicants complained that that the first applicant’s detention had been in violation of Article 5 of the Convention, given its unlawfulness already under domestic law. First, the domestic organs, in deciding to place the first applicant in compulsory care, had failed to hear the applicants in accordance with section 11 of the Mental Health Act. Second, the detention of a minor with reduced intellectual capacity together with adult patients with a criminal background had not been appropriate in view of the purposes of the first applicant’s care, thereby violating section 8, subsection 3, of the Mental Health Act. Even after the Supreme Administrative Court had stressed, on 23 December 1996, that a minor should normally not be placed on a ward for adults, the first applicant had not been transferred to the young persons’ ward. Moreover, the first applicant’s detention had not been reviewed speedily by the Supreme Administrative Court.
2. The applicants further complained that they had been denied a fair hearing within the meaning of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention in that the Supreme Administrative Court, without any advance notice, had based its decision of 23 December 1996 in part on its decision of 1995 and the material in that case-file. The applicants should have been invited to comment on that decision and material.
3. The applicants further complained that the Supreme Administrative Court’s failure to hold a public hearing in the proceedings ending on 23 December 1996 also violated Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.
4. The applicants further complained that the first applicant’s detention together with adult patients with a criminal background had amounted to inhuman treatment proscribed by Article 3 of the Convention.
5. Finally, the applicants complained that the first applicant’s detention had violated the applicants’ right to respect for their family life within the meaning of Article 8 of the Convention.
THE LAW
Under Article 37 § 1 of the Convention the Court may at any stage of the proceedings decide to strike an application out of its list of cases where the circumstances lead to the conclusion that the applicant does not intend to pursue his application, that the matter has been resolved or when, for any other reason established by the Court, it is no longer justified to continue the examination of the application. The Court shall nevertheless continue the examination of the application if respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and the Protocols thereto so requires.
By letter of 2 September 2002 counsel for the applicants informed the Court that the parties had reached a friendly settlement on the following terms:
“Eelis, Esko and Ulla Saranen have agreed with the Government of Finland that the Government will pay to Eelis Saranen EUR 3,000 and to Esko and Ulla Saranen EUR 1,500 [each], in total EUR 6,000.
The Government of Finland will pay for the costs and expenses in [a] total [of] EUR 3,631.61 (EUR 2,976.73 + 22 % tax = EUR 654.88). The Court has given earlier as legal aid EUR 623.27. So this means all costs are EUR 4,254.88.
Eelis, Esko and Ulla Saranen [have] no further claims against the Finnish State based on the facts of the relevant application.”
The Court is satisfied that the matter has been resolved by the aforementioned agreement and that it is no longer justified to continue the examination of this application (Article 37 § 1 in fine of the Convention).
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases.
Michael O’BoyleNicolas Bratza
RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy