The European Court of Human Rights continues to make clear that a failure by member states to protect women from domestic violence will amount to a breach of article 3. The latest decision in Affaire Buturuga v Romania (App No. 56867/15), available only in French, found a breach of Articles 3 and 8 in respect of a failure to investigate adequately and/or take action on complaints of domestic violence and awarded €10,000 general damages.
The European Court of Human Rights continues to make clear that a failure by member states to protect women from domestic violence will amount to a breach of Article 3. The latest decision in Affaire Buturuga v Romania (App No. 56867/15), available only in French, found a breach of Articles 3 and 8 in respect of a failure to investigate adequately and/or take action on complaints of domestic violence and awarded €10,000 general damages.
In Znakovas v Lithuania [2019] ECHR 820, the European Court of Human Rights held that where police officers used a Taser to subdue an arrested person being taken in a police car to a police station and there was then a subsequent failure to investigate the force used, both matters amounted to a breach of Article 3, justifying damages of €12,000.
In R (AB) v Chief Constable of Hampshire Constabulary [2019] EWHC 3461 (Admin), the Divisional Court considered a claim on behalf of a boy with severe learning and communication disabilities, that police had failed properly to investigate what appeared to be a disclosure by him of a sexual assault during a stay at in respite care. He argued that they had wrongly proceeded to interview him despite no witness intermediary being available and had subsequently failed to re-interview him with an intermediary. He argued that this was a breach of Article 3, and unlawful disability discrimination. The Court dismissed the claim, also giving important procedural guidance.
In Volodina v Russia (Application No 41261/17); [2019] ECHR 539 the European Court of Human Rights has held that domestic violence falls within the description of inhuman or degrading treatment for the purposes of Article 3, such that where the police receive a complaint of this, they are likely to have an obligation to launch an investigation into it for the purposes of identifying and punishing the perpetrator and, possibly, to take protective measures against such further behaviour.