Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 147
December 2011
Taraburca v. Moldova - 18919/10
Judgment 6.12.2011 [Section III]
Article 3
Degrading treatment
Inhuman treatment
Effective investigation
Ill-treatment in police custody and lack of effective investigation: violations
Facts – Growing discontent – amidst allegations of electoral fraud – about the 2009 general elections in Moldova led thousands of young people to demonstrate in the centre of Chişinău on 6 and 7 April 2009. A relatively small number of demonstrators turned violent and 250 protestors took over and looted the lower floors of the Presidential Palace and Parliament buildings, setting parts of the buildings alight. Police and special forces were called in to restore order. Mass arrests were made over the following days with the media reporting on and showing video footage of young people being arrested and beaten by the police. A subsequent public inquiry into the incident established that excessive force had been used against demonstrators.
The applicant alleged that, after peacefully attending the protests on 7 April 2009, he and a friend, S., were bundled into a vehicle by three plain-clothed officers and taken to a police station. While there, he was beaten by uniformed police until he fainted. A prison doctor examined him that day but recorded no signs of ill-treatment. He was assigned a legal-aid lawyer and on 10 April was brought before an investigating judge, who ordered his detention pending trial for thirty days. That night he was transferred to prison. On the way there he alleged that he was made to walk through a corridor of police officers each of whom hit him as he went past. On 14 April while still in detention the applicant made two complaints of ill-treatment to the prosecuting authorities and was immediately examined by a doctor, who recorded scratches and bruising to his face. The applicant was released on 16 April 2009 and the criminal proceedings against him were subsequently discontinued. The prosecutor decided not to launch a criminal investigation into his complaints of ill-treatment, essentially on the basis of a statement by S. that he had not been ill-treated or seen the applicant being ill-treated.
Law – Article 3
(a) Substantive aspect – The background to the case appeared to have been one of systematic and large-scale ill-treatment of detainees by the police within a relatively short period of time, as confirmed by the findings of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment (CPT), the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe and the parliamentary inquiry commission tasked with the elucidation of the causes and consequences of the events following the general election in April 2009. As to whether there was sufficient evidence that the applicant had been ill-treated, the Court noted he had been in good health with no signs of ill-treatment when seen by a prison doctor shortly after being detained. However, a week later another prison doctor had found injuries to his face. The Government had not given an acceptable explanation for the origin of these injuries and had failed to rebut the strong presumption created by the materials, including reports by various international and national bodies, before the Court. The extremely overcrowded conditions in which the applicant had been held initially and the absence of assistance for his injuries had contributed to the anguish the applicant must have suffered as a result of his ill-treatment and the other circumstances of his arrest. The fact that the applicant had not complained of police brutality until a week later did not, as suggested by the Government, prove that he had not been ill-treated. On the contrary, it was perfectly understandable that he had only made his complaint when he had seen a lawyer he felt he could trust, given the state of insecurity at the time with many people being openly ill-treated and humiliated, judges examining cases in police stations in a summary manner and legal-aid lawyers ignoring their clients’ visible injuries. The fear and helplessness the applicant must have felt had indeed been shared by a majority of the alleged victims, as corroborated in the CPT report which noted that most complaints had emerged after a release or a transfer to an establishment under the Ministry of Justice.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
(b) Procedural aspect – The Court also found a procedural violation of Article 3 in that no proper criminal investigation had been initiated, there had been a series of unexplained delays, part of the inquiry had been carried out by the authority that employed most of those suspected of the ill-treatment, the authorities had failed for over a week to react to visible signs of ill-treatment on the applicant’s face and no attempt had been made to obtain potentially important evidence from co-detainees or through an identity parade.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41: EUR 15,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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