Information Note on the Court’s case-law 68
October 2004
Storck v. Germany (dec.) - 61603/00
Decision 26.10.2004 [Section III]
Article 5
Article 5-1
Lawful arrest or detention
Placement in psychiatric institutions, allegedly without consent of person concerned: admissible
The applicant claims she was placed several times in different psychiatric hospitals at the demand of her father and against her will. She alleges that she was wrongly diagnosed and forced to take medicaments that ruined her physically and psychologically. Moreover, the medicaments had caused her to develop a post-poliomyelitis syndrome (an illness which she had suffered at the age of the three) and she was presently 100% handicapped. Her main complaint concerned her confinement in a private clinic in Bremen from 1977 to 1979. At the time she was 18 years old and had not signed a declaration consenting to her placement in that institution. On several occasions she had tried to flee from the clinic but had been brought back by the police by force. In 1981, she had again been confined to this institution for some months. In 1991, the applicant received treatment in a clinic in Mainz. In 1994 a medical report prepared on the applicant’s demand certified that she had at no point suffered from children’s schizophrenia, and that her excessive behaviour resulted from family conflicts and a puberty crisis (this was later confirmed by a second expert opinion). In 1997 the applicant brought an action for damages against the private clinic in Bremen. The Regional Court allowed the action as her detention had been illegal and concluded she was entitled to damages. However, this judgment was quashed by the Court of Appeal, which found that it had not been established that the applicant had been detained against her will or that the treatment or dosage of medicaments had been erroneous. The applicant lodged a constitutional complaint against the Court of Appeal’s decision, which the Constitutional Court refused to entertain. The Constitutional Court held that the complaints were not of fundamental importance and that it was not its function to deal with errors of law allegedly committed by civil courts. The applicant complains that her placement in different institutions against her will breached her rights under Article 5, that the medical treatment she received against her will interfered with her private life, and that she was not afforded a fair trial due to the interpretation of national law which the courts had made and the manner in which they had assessed expert evidence.
Admissible under Articles 5, 6 (fair hearing) and 8, concerning the applicant’s complaints concerning her stays in the clinics in Bremen and Mainz. Government’s objections: (i) res iudicata: although a committee had declared the application inadmissible in October 2002, in exceptional circumstances and in the interests of justice, the Court had the power to reopen a case, (ii) non-exhaustion: the Court was satisfied that the applicant had exhausted domestic remedies as she had raised the substance of her complaints before the Constitutional Court.
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