Legal summary
September 2025
Scuderoni v. Italy - 6045/24
Judgment 23.9.2025 [Section I]
Article 3
Positive obligations
Failure by authorities to discharge positive obligation to protect applicant from domestic violence committed by former partner: violation
Failure by State to adequately discharge procedural obligation to ensure domestic violence suffered by applicant was dealt with appropriately: violation
Article 8
Positive obligations
Failure by authorities to discharge positive obligation to protect applicant from domestic violence committed by former partner: violation
Failure by State to adequately discharge procedural obligation to ensure domestic violence suffered by applicant was dealt with appropriately: violation
Facts – The applicant and G.C. separated in August 2017 but continued to live together for nine months in the same house along with their son, who had been born in 2012.
Starting in February 2018 the applicant brought proceedings first before the civil and then before the criminal authorities, to no avail. Complaining of her former partner’s violent behaviour, she alleged, in particular, that he was threatening her (occasionally in the presence of their son), harassing her, monitoring her every move and both psychologically and physically abusing her.
Before the Court, the applicant complained that the civil and criminal courts had not examined her applications in a timely manner, that the civil court had rejected her application for a protection order and that the criminal investigation had been ineffective. She alleged that the domestic courts had not properly assessed either the risk of physical and psychological violence to which she had been exposed or her need for protection.
The applicant further complained about her former partner’s acquittal, arguing that the court – owing to enduring sexist stereotypes – had treated the domestic violence in question as mere family disputes; and about the public prosecutor’s decision not to lodge an appeal.
Law – Articles 3 and 8:
(1) Applicability of Articles 3 and 8 of the Convention – The Court did not doubt that G.C.’s hostile behaviour during his nine-month cohabitation with the applicant had made her genuinely fear that the violence would be repeated over a prolonged period. The authorities’ response – offering no protection to the applicant – must have had the effect of exacerbating the feelings of anxiety and powerlessness caused by G.C.’s threatening behaviour. The unpredictable spiral of violence and uncertainty about what could happen to her must have made her even more vulnerable and plunged her into a state of fear and emotional and psychological distress. In the view of the Court, the allegations were sufficiently serious to attain the minimum level provided for in Article 3 and thus to trigger the authorities’ positive obligations under that provision.
The applicant’s right to respect for her private life under Article 8, including the secrecy of correspondence, was also at stake.
(2) Compliance with positive obligations – The legal and operational tools available under the legislative framework at the material time provided the relevant authorities with a sufficiently wide range of measures that were adequate and proportionate to the seriousness of the risk in the present case.
(a) Positive obligation to protect the applicant from domestic violence on the part of her former partner – The Court considered that the national authorities had known, or should have known, that there was a real and immediate risk to the applicant of recurrent violence on the part of G.C.
The authorities had not, however, displayed the special diligence required. They had neither taken an autonomous, proactive approach, nor conducted a comprehensive risk assessment for ill‑treatment targeting specifically the context of domestic violence and in particular – given that the proceedings had concerned child access rights – the situation of the applicant and her son. Such an assessment would have justified concrete preventive measures to protect them from that risk. The authorities had then neglected to deal with the matter in a timely manner, examining the applicant’s civil action nine months after it had been brought.
In conclusion, the authorities had failed to discharge their positive obligation under Articles 3 and 8 of the Convention to protect the applicant from the domestic violence committed by G.C.
(b) Obligation to carry out an effective investigation into the allegations of domestic violence – In the most recent GREVIO report on Italy, specific mention was made of the fact that the courts continued to require violence to be habitual for the offence of ill-treatment in the family to be made out. The Court shared GREVIO’s concerns as to the widespread judicial practice of systematically ruling out the habitual nature of repetitive violence wherever (i) that conduct had taken place during a short lapse of time; (ii) the acts had occurred at the end of a relationship in which no prior complaints had been made, and were thus ascribed to a mere occasional “state of anger”; or (iii) the victim had actively resisted, leading the courts to reduce the violence to “conflict within the couple”.
In the present case, the authorities had made no serious attempt to obtain a comprehensive view of the applicant’s situation – despite that being a requirement in this type of case. A proper assessment should have involved an analysis of G.C.’s harassing behaviour taken as a whole, including the allegations of psychological and physical abuse, non-respect of the applicant’s contact rights and economic violence, along with the allegations of breaches of cyberprivacy regarding the intrusion into the victim’s computer. Instead, single events and acts had been examined in isolation.
The Court concluded that given the manner in which the national authorities had dealt with the evidence before them – which had shown that the applicant was suffering spousal abuse – and especially their inability to ensure that the perpetrator was prosecuted and, if appropriate, punished without undue delay, they had not taken the specific issue of domestic violence into account during the criminal investigation. In particular:
(i) The criminal proceedings before the court had lasted four years and had been presided over by four successive judges.
(ii) The court had found that G.C.’s behaviour towards the applicant, although objectively harassing and aggressive, was more an expression of conflict and resentment than systematic ill-treatment, and that the applicant had not been reduced to a state of psychological submission. No in-depth assessment had been conducted of the allegations of psychological and physical abuse, non-respect of the applicant’s contact rights or economic violence.
(iii) In acquitting G.C. of the offence of bodily harm, the court had called the applicant’s credibility into question without good reason. That was despite the fact that she had submitted a medical certificate from the emergency department issued immediately after the alleged assault.
The Court found that the national authorities had thereby failed in their duty to provide a response that was proportionate to the seriousness of the applicant’s allegations. The applicant had also been unable to appeal against the judgment, since the public prosecutor’s office had rejected her request to that end.
It followed that in the particular circumstances of the case, and in view of the specific danger that violence against women posed to society and of the need to combat such abuse by effective, deterrent measures, the State, in its response to the applicant’s complaint, had failed to adequately discharge its procedural obligation to deal appropriately with the violence she had suffered.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41: EUR 15,000 EUR in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
(See Talpis v. Italy, 41237/14, 2 March 2017, Legal Summary; Buturugă v. Romania, 56867/15, 11 February 2020, Legal Summary; Landi v. Italy, 10929/19, 7 April 2022, Legal Summary; De Giorgi v. Italy, 23735/19, 16 June 2022; M.S. v. Italy, 32715/19, 7 July 2022; P.P. v. Italy, 64066/19, 13 February 2025; Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, the Istanbul Convention, adopted on 11 May 2011); Baseline evaluation report on Italy of the Council of Europe Expert Group on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO), published on 13 January 2020; Concluding observations of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women on the eighth periodic report of Italy (CEDAW/C/ITA/8), published on 27 February 2024)
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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