CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 25 mars 2010

.s3ABFC313 { font-size:10pt } .sEB86A30B { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:14pt; page-break-after:avoid } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .sA241FE93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:18pt; text-align:justify; page-break-after:avoid; border-bottom:0.75pt solid #000000; padding-bottom:1pt } .s2EF62ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:12pt } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .s8F2B0B1B { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:12pt } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .s5F48796F { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify } .s5CB9E8AB { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify; border-bottom:1pt solid #000000; padding-bottom:1pt } .sDF790F1E { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s3DC36BA9 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 128 March 2010 Paraskeva Todorova v. Bulgaria - 37193/07 Judgment 25.3.2010 [Section V] Article 14 Discrimination Refusal, as a result of applicant’s ethnic origin, to suspend sentence: violation   Facts – The applicant is a member of the Roma community. A district court sentenced her to three years’ imprisonment for fraud and refused to suspend the sentence. The applicant appealed unsuccessfully to the higher courts. Law – Article 14 in conjunction with Article 6 §   1: Although, in assessing the deterrent effect of a sentence on the rest of society, a court might take account of more general phenomena such as the situation with regard to crime in the country concerned, such considerations had to have some kind of factual basis; the domestic court in this case had not put forward any argument or fact in support of its finding. Furthermore, the Court was not convinced that the applicant’s ethnic background had played only a minor part in the domestic court’s assessment, as the latter had made express reference to her Roma origins at the beginning of its reasoning. Furthermore, in order to justify its refusal to suspend the sentence, the district court had referred to the existence of a general impression of impunity in society, stressing the scale of this phenomenon among the members of minority groups, who did not perceive a suspended sentence as a conviction. That comment could create the impression that it was seeking to set an example by sentencing a member of the Roma community to immediate imprisonment. Furthermore, the issue of the applicant’s health had not been taken into consideration by the district court in deciding whether or not to suspend the sentence. Finally, the higher courts had dismissed the applicant’s appeals. By endorsing the reasoning of the district court judgment, they had not remedied the latter’s defects and had not dispelled the doubts as to the discriminatory nature of the prison sentence. Accordingly, the applicant had been subjected to a difference in treatment based on her ethnic origin, on account of the ambiguous reasoning of the domestic courts’ decision to impose immediate imprisonment. There had been no objective circumstance capable of justifying that situation. The Court stressed in that connection the seriousness of the facts complained of and made the point that stamping out racism was a priority in Europe’s multicultural societies and that equality of citizens before the law was enshrined in Bulgarian domestic legislation. Conclusion : violation (unanimously). Article 41: EUR 5,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage; reopening of the criminal proceedings considered the most appropriate form of redress.   © Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court. Click here for the Case-Law Information Notes