CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 28 septembre 2015

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Belgium [GC] - 23380/09 Judgment 28.9.2015 [GC] Article 3 Degrading treatment Alleged administration of slaps by police officers during police interview: violation Facts – The applicants, two brothers, one of whom was a minor at the material time, were questioned separately by the police concerning unrelated incidents. They each alleged that they had been slapped in the face once by police officers. They lodged complaints and applied to intervene as civil parties, but their suits were unsuccessful. By judgment of 21 November 2013 (see Information Note   168 ), a Chamber of the Court held unanimously that there had been no violation of Article   3. Law – Article 3 ( substantive aspect ) (a)     Establishment of the facts   – In order to benefit from presumptions of fact, individuals claiming to be victims of a violation of Article   3 of the Convention must demonstrate that they display marks of ill-treatment inflicted when they were under the control of the police or a similar authority. The medical certificates provided by the applicants, which had been drawn up on the day in question shortly after the applicants’ departure from the police station, mention erythema and bruising which could have been caused by slaps to the face. Furthermore, it was not disputed that the applicants had not displayed such marks when they had entered the police station. Finally, while the police officers in question had, throughout the domestic proceedings, consistently denied having slapped the applicants, the latter had equally consistently stated the opposite. Moreover, given the major shortcomings in the criminal investigation conducted, the truthfulness of the police officers’ statements cannot be inferred solely from the fact that the investigation failed to provide information to the contrary. Nor is there any evidence to corroborate the theory put forward by the Government at the hearing (but not before the national courts) that the applicants might have slapped themselves in order to create a case against the police. The Court therefore deemed it sufficiently established that the bruising described in the certificates provided by the applicants had been caused while they were under the control of the officers in the police station. (b)     Classification of the treatment inflicted on the applicants   – The Government simply denied that any slaps had ever been administered. It appeared from the case file that each slap had been an impulsive act in response to an attitude perceived as disrespectful, which was certainly insufficient to establish the necessity of using such physical force. Consequently, the applicants’ dignity had been undermined and there had therefore been a violation of Article   3 of the Convention. The Court emphasised that the administration of a slap by a police officer to a person who is completely under his control constitutes a serious attack on the latter’s dignity. A slap to the face has a considerable impact on the person receiving it, because it affects the part of the person’s body which expresses his individuality, manifests his social identity and constitutes the centre of his senses – sight, speech and hearing – which are used for communication with others. Given that it may well suffice that the victim is humiliated in his own eyes for there to have been degrading treatment within the meaning of Article   3, a slap – even if it is isolated, not premeditated and devoid of any serious or lasting effect on the person receiving it – may be perceived as a humiliation by the person receiving it. When the slap is administered by police officers to individuals who are under their control, it highlights the superiority/inferiority relationship. The fact that the victims know that such an act is unlawful, constitutes a breach of moral and professional ethics by the officers and is unacceptable, may furthermore arouse in them a feeling of arbitrary treatment, injustice and powerlessness. Moreover, persons who are held in police custody or are even simply taken or summoned to a police station for an identity check or questioning – as in the applicants’ case – and more broadly all persons under the control of the police or a similar authority, are in a situation of vulnerability. The authorities who are under a duty to protect them flout this duty by inflicting the humiliation of a slap. The fact that the slap may have been administered thoughtlessly by an officer who was exasperated by the victim’s disrespectful or provocative conduct was irrelevant. The Grand Chamber therefore departed from the Chamber’s approach on this point. The Convention prohibits in absolute terms torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, irrespective of the conduct of the person concerned. In a democratic society ill-treatment is never an appropriate response to problems facing the authorities. The police, specifically, must “not inflict, instigate or tolerate any act of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under any circumstances” ( European Code of Police Ethics ). Furthermore, Article 3 of the Convention imposes a positive obligation on the State to train its law-enforcement officials in such a manner as to ensure their high level of competence in their professional conduct so that no one is subjected to torture or treatment that runs counter to that provision. Lastly, the first applicant had been a minor at the material time. It is vital for law-enforcement officers who are in contact with minors in the exercise of their duties to take due account of the vulnerability inherent in their young age. Police behaviour towards minors may be incompatible with the requirements of Article 3 of the Convention simply because they are minors, whereas it might be deemed acceptable in the case of adults. Therefore, law-enforcement officers must show greater vigilance and self-control when dealing with minors. In conclusion, the slap administered to each of the applicants by the police officers while they were under their control in the police station did not correspond to recourse to physical force that had been made strictly necessary by their conduct, and had thus diminished their dignity. Given that the applicants referred only to minor bodily injuries and had not demonstrated that they had undergone serious physical or mental suffering, the treatment in question could not be described as inhuman or, a fortiori , torture. The Court therefore found that the present case involved degrading treatment. Conclusion : violation (fourteen votes to three). Article 3 ( procedural aspect ): The investigating authorities had failed to devote the requisite attention to the applicants’ allegations, despite their being substantiated by the medical certificates which they had submitted for inclusion in the case file, or to the nature of the act, involving a law-enforcement officer slapping an individual who was completely under his control. Furthermore, the Court notes the unusual length of the investigation. Almost five years elapsed between the first applicant’s complaint and the Court of Cassation judgment marking the close of the proceedings, and a period of over four years and eight months had elapsed in the second applicant’s case. Therefore, the applicants had not benefited from an effective investigation. Conclusion : violation (unanimously). Article 41: EUR 5,000 each 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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