CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 19 mars 2026

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France - 70945/17 Judgment 19.3.2026 [Section V] Article 6 Article 6-1 Fair hearing Failure to afford fair-trial guarantees in context of caution issued by public prosecutor to applicant characterising her as “perpetrator” of false accusation of rape, following discontinuance of her case: violation Facts – In June 2016 the then 16-year-old applicant, accompanied by her mother, reported a 17‑year-old man, L.A., to the police for forcing her to perform oral sex on him in the toilets of their secondary school in late May 2016. On 6   September 2016 L.A.’s mother, as her son’s legal representative, reported the applicant to the police for falsely accusing him of rape. On 8   September 2016 the police sent the case file to the public prosecutor’s office. In October 2016 the public prosecutor’s office discontinued the applicant’s case because the offence had not been made out. In September 2017 the applicant, assisted by her lawyer and accompanied by her parents, was summoned to appear before the public prosecutor’s representative and was issued with a caution ( rappel à la loi ). Law – Article   6 §   1: (1) Admissibility – (a) Government’s preliminary objection that a caution was incompatible ratione materiae with Article   6 §   1 of the Convention – The Court considered that the present case had certain similarities with R.   v. the United Kingdom . In its decision in that case, the Court had declared inadmissible a complaint under the criminal head of Article   6 §   1 of the Convention concerning a decision by the police not to prosecute a minor applicant for indecent assault and instead to issue him with a warning. The present case was nevertheless different in several regards. The Court considered that the question whether Article   6 §   1 applied in the present case did not hinge on the caution itself, taken on its own, or even on the nature of alternatives to prosecution. The applicant’s complaint was that she had at no point been heard or protected as an alleged victim of sexual assault during the proceedings as a whole, comprising a series of decisions by the public prosecutor affecting her. The decision to discontinue the rape investigation and her subsequent caution for false accusation had been based on the same facts, which had given rise to two indissociable sets of proceedings whose nature had to be considered holistically. The Court consequently found that, in the specific circumstances of the case, the issue of the “criminal nature” of the proceedings in dispute, assessed as a whole, was closely linked to the substance of the applicant’s complaint, namely that she had not been afforded the guarantees of a fair trial despite being characterised as the “perpetrator” of a criminal offence. Conclusion : preliminary objection (incompatibility ratione materiae ) joined to the merits. (b) Preliminary objection of inadmissibility on grounds of no significant disadvantage – The issuance of a caution meant that the applicant was regarded as the perpetrator of a false accusation. It indicated that the judicial authority responsible for the prosecution based on her rape complaint was questioning her integrity. By accusing her of lying about being the victim of serious criminal acts, the public prosecutor’s office was also casting doubt on her future credibility. In view of such observations and the consequences of the caution for the applicant’s personal situation, arising from its inclusion on her criminal history database for a five-year period, the lack of any final decision not to prosecute until the expiry of the limitation period for the offence and the dissuasive effect that had had, the Court considered that the applicant could complain of a significant disadvantage on account of the alleged violation. Conclusion : preliminary objection (no significant disadvantage) rejected. (2) Merits – The public prosecutor’s office, in issuing the caution, had taken the parties’ two irreconcilable versions of the facts   – as to whether or not the applicant had freely given her consent to the alleged sexual act   – and had come to the finding, without providing any reasons, that the applicant had lied. This was despite the fact that she had always maintained the contrary and had not admitted to the alleged offence. Furthermore, although the applicant had always denied lying about the alleged rape, the public prosecutor’s office had not granted her repeated requests to be afforded the full benefit of the guarantees of a fair trial, which she accordingly could not be regarded as having waived. The applicant had thus been deprived of the guarantees pertaining to a decision on the merits of the offence of false accusation. In a similar case ( Klouvi v.   France ), the Court had found that only a hearing on whether the accusations were false was capable of ensuring a fair trial for a person prosecuted and convicted for making such an accusation. The Court was mindful of the significant difficulty of ascertaining the existence of consent in certain criminal cases, and of the fact that the public prosecutor’s office could in some circumstances legitimately discontinue rape cases, particularly where the parties’ divergent statements were the only evidence gathered during the investigation. In the present case, however, the caution for false accusation had been issued because it was considered an established fact that the applicant had consented to the sexual act and had subsequently made untrue statements. According to the very wording of the caution, the applicant was designated as the “perpetrator” of the false accusation. The Court reiterated that consent, which could by nature be withdrawn, should, in its view, reflect a person’s free will to engage in the sexual intercourse in question, at the material time and as assessed in the context of the surrounding circumstances. The Court thus considered that such an assertion about the applicant was not based on a proper understanding of the concept of consent as defined in its case-law. The comments that the police had sent to the public prosecutor’s office with the case file in September 2016, before the case was discontinued, were in any event indicative of the stereotypes that could lead to the victim’s statements being disregarded in such matters. Reference was made, for example, to the fact that the applicant had not screamed or struggled, “nor [had] she clearly [said] no” at the time of the alleged act. The Court reiterated the need, as guaranteed by Article   10 of the Convention, to provide appropriate protection to anyone alleging to have been a victim of bullying or sexual harassment. It was further true in the present case that recourse to a caution could not be justified solely by the discontinuance of the applicant’s case on account of the offence not having been made out. Such an outcome implied that there had been insufficient evidence at the preliminary-investigation phase to warrant prosecution, as assessed by the public prosecutor’s office, and not that the allegations had been false. Once again emphasising the importance and the difficulty of ascertaining the existence of consent with consideration being given to all surrounding circumstances, the Court drew the following conclusions from the above. The applicant had been issued with a caution that designated her as the “perpetrator” of a false accusation following the discontinuance of the investigation into her rape complaint. At no time, however, had she waived the various guarantees under Article   6 §   1   – not having admitted to the offence   – and she had not had an opportunity to challenge that designation before a “tribunal” affording those guarantees. The situation had arisen from the specific circumstances of the case, in which a series of decisions taken by the public prosecutor’s office in the context of more than one set of criminal proceedings had resulted in an “official allegation of having committed a [criminal] offence” being notified to the applicant by means of a criminal-law measure in the form of a caution. Accordingly, the Court found that Article   6 §   1 was applicable under its criminal head to the whole sequence of proceedings. It therefore dismissed the Government’s preliminary objection. Conclusion : violation (unanimously). Article   41: EUR   7,500 in respect of non-pecuniary damage. (See R. v.   the United Kingdom (dec.), 33506/05, 4   January 2007, Legal Summary ; Klouvi v.   France , 30754/03, 30   June 2011, Legal Summary ; H.W. v.   France , 13805/21, 23   January 2025, Legal Summary )   © Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court. 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