CEDH · PRESS;GENERAL;ENG — 13 octobre 2005

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s40F41F73 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s33165EBA { font-family:Arial; font-size:8pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s6B505E72 { margin:0pt; padding-left:0pt } .s1C7BEF1E { margin-left:28.52pt; padding-left:7.48pt; font-family:serif } .s76CF415B { page-break-before:always; clear:both } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .s9F8EB0C0 { width:18.63pt; display:inline-block } .s9E97F54A { width:85.05pt; display:inline-block } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS   540 13.10.2005   Press release issued by the Registrar   CHAMBER JUDGMENT MOGOŞ v. ROMANIA   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing a judgment [1] in the case of Mogoş v. Romania (application no. 20420/02).   The Court held unanimously that there had been no violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights as regards the incident of   1 April 2002; no violation of Article 3 as regards the living conditions at the transit   centre at   Henri Coanda   International Airport in Bucharest; and no violation of Article 34 (individual applications) as regards the applicants’ allegations of interference with their correspondence with the European Court of Human Rights.   (The judgment is available only in French.)   1.     Principal facts   The applicants, Marin Mogoş, his wife Anişoara Mogoş and their three children Gheorghe, Gabriela and Dorina Mogoş, are Romanian nationals who were born in 1950, 1953, 1983, 1984 and 1986 respectively. Since 8 March 2002 they have been in the transit centre at Henri Coanda International Airport in Bucharest.   In 1990 the applicants left Romania for Germany. In February 1993 the Romanian Government allowed an application by Mr and Mrs Mogoş to give up their Romanian nationality. Under the Nationality Act (Law no. 21/1991), their children also lost their Romanian nationality as a result.   The parties differ as to the facts.   On 7 March 2002 Anişoara Mogoş and her daughter Dorina were arrested by the German police and were forcibly deported to Bucharest by air, under an agreement between the German and Romanian authorities on stateless persons of Romanian origin within the territory of Germany. On the same day, Marin Mogoş and his children Gheorghe and Gabriela were likewise deported to Bucharest, on a different flight. When stopped by the border police on arrival, they refused to sign the documents for their repatriation and were consequently transferred to a room in the closed transit centre at Bucharest Airport on 9   March 2002, where they have remained ever since on account of their refusal to enter Romanian territory.   On 1 April 2002, police officers accompanied by two doctors, among others, went to the centre in order to transfer another stateless person to hospital. The applicants claimed that the police officers threatened them, saying in particular: “Germany no longer wants you ... it doesn’t need Gypsies ...” On the orders of the colonels present, the police officers then assaulted the applicants, allegedly beating Marin Mogoş to the extent that he was left unconscious for 15 to 20 minutes, punching Gheorghe violently, strangling Gabriela and pulling her hair, and dragging Anişoara Mogoş along the corridor by the hair. One of the consequences of those incidents was that Dorina started suffering from depression.   According to the Romanian Government, when the officers from the border police arrived at the centre to take a stateless person to hospital as an emergency, they were assaulted by the applicants and a number of them sustained injuries as a result.   Proceedings were instituted against some of the applicants for insulting public officials but were discontinued on the ground that Romanian criminal law was not applicable in the territory of the transit centre.   Marin Mogoş lodged a complaint against the border police officers, alleging unlawful arrest, wrongful investigation and ill-treatment. A complaint concerning the assaults on the members of the Mogoş family on 1 April 2002 was lodged on their behalf. The proceedings were discontinued on 6 August 2002.   The applicants also maintained that the living conditions at the centre were inhuman. They submitted that they did not have a kitchen and were obliged to do their washing by hand; that the plastic bags left by the front door in the absence of litter bins attracted rats, cockroaches and flies; and that until February 2003 they had not had permanent heating or hot water but only lukewarm water every few days. The Government denied those allegations and contended that the material conditions at the centre were very good.   Lastly, the applicants claimed that they were suffering from various illnesses and disorders and were not being given appropriate medical treatment by the Government, who denied this.   The applicants brought administrative proceedings to challenge the lawfulness of what they regarded as their detention at the centre, but were unsuccessful. The outcome of those proceedings is the subject of another application (no. 44456/04) pending before the European Court of Human Rights.   2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 2 May 2002 and was declared partly admissible on 6 May 2004.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   Boštjan M. Zupančič (Slovenian), President , John Hedigan (Irish), Lucius Caflisch (Swiss) [2] , Corneliu Bîrsan (Romanian), Renate Jaeger (German), Egbert Myjer (Netherlands), David Thór Björgvinsson (Icelandic), judges , and also Vincent Berger , Section Registrar .   3.     Summary of the judgment [3]   Complaints   Relying on Article 3, the applicants alleged that they had been ill-treated by Romanian police officers on 1 April 2002. They also complained that their living conditions at the transit centre were inhuman and that they were not given any medical treatment. They further submitted, under Article 34, that their correspondence with the Court had been interfered with, in that their mail had been opened and there had been delays in delivering it.   Decision of the Court   Article 3   As regards the alleged acts of violence of 1 April 2002 The applicants had not supplied any medical certificates to corroborate their allegations. The only evidence they had filed during the investigation was a video recording made after the incident, which showed red patches on Marin Mogoş’s back. The Court was compelled to observe that there was uncertainty as to the seriousness of the applicant’s injuries, which stemmed in part from the quality of the recording.   The applicants could have gone to a forensic medical institute or laboratory or sent for a doctor, either themselves or through their lawyer, so that any traces of violence could be noted. The Court reiterated in that connection that it had concluded in its decision on the admissibility of the application that the applicants were not being “detained”.   The Court further noted that it appeared from the investigation conducted into the case by the Romanian authorities, following which the proceedings had been discontinued, that the violence used by the police officers had not been deliberate but had consisted in legitimate attempts to restrain the applicants, who had been in a state of agitation. The applicants had not produced any compelling evidence capable of persuading the Court to diverge from the prosecuting authorities’ findings that there was no case to answer.   Besides their allegations, the applicants had not submitted any evidence to show that the alleged acts of violence against them during the incident of 1 April 2002 had taken place. However, even supposing that the red patches observed on Marin Mogoş’s body had resulted from that incident, the Court considered that it had not been established that the force used by the police officers had been excessive or disproportionate. It therefore held that there had been no violation of Article 3 as regards the force used against the applicants during the incident in question.   As regards the living conditions at the transit centre The Court began by pointing out that it had found in its admissibility decision that the applicants’ refusal to leave the transit centre despite having the opportunity to do so at any moment, provided that they carried out the necessary administrative formalities, was not attributable to the Romanian State. It went on to note that the applicants had firmly refused to set foot in Romanian territory or to enter into a legal relationship with the Romanian State and had categorically rejected any hospital treatment.   Besides their assertions, the applicants had not provided the Court with any objective evidence regarding their living conditions. On the contrary, the Court could see no reason to disagree with the information which the Government had supplied on the matter from the National Authority for Refugees and the airport management, and which contradicted the applicants’ allegations.   It also appeared from the photographs taken after the incident of 1 April 2002 that the living conditions were not intolerable: the applicants’ room had been fitted with windows and doors so that it was soundproof; not all the windows had been barred; there had been beds, a tiled floor and even a telephone. The Court further noted that all the centre’s operational costs (electricity, heating, water, telephone) were borne by the airport management. Lastly, in its assessment the Court had regard to the report drawn up by the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) after a visit to Romania in September 2002 and February 2003, which invalidated the applicants’ assertions.   As regards medical treatment, the Court observed that the applicants had had several check-ups, as was apparent from the evidence provided by the ambulance service and the border police and from the medical records in the file. It further noted that they had categorically refused to be taken to hospital.   In those circumstances, the Court held that there had been no violation of Article 3 as regards the living conditions at the transit centre.   Article 34   The Court noted, firstly, that the applicants had not submitted the envelopes for the letters in question as it had asked them to do in its decision on the admissibility of the application. As regards the time taken to deliver the mail, the Court noted that no delays in dispatching it had been recorded and that the dates stamped on it by employees of the airport’s post office indicated that it had been delivered to the applicants on the actual date of receipt.   Having regard to the circumstances of the case, the Court did not find it established that the authorities had interfered with the applicants’ correspondence. It therefore held that Romania had not fallen short of its obligations under Article 34.     ***   The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Registry of the European Court of Human Rights F – 67075 Strasbourg Cedex Press contacts:   Roderick Liddell (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 24 92)   Emma Hellyer (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 15)   Stéphanie Klein (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 21 54)   Beverley Jacobs (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 90 21 54 21) Fax: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 27 91   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. Since 1 November 1998 it has sat as a full-time Court composed of an equal number of judges to that of the States party to the Convention. The Court examines the admissibility and merits of applications submitted to it. It sits in Chambers of 7 judges or, in exceptional cases, as a Grand Chamber of 17 judges. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe supervises the execution of the Court’s judgments. [1] Under Article 43 of the European Convention on Human Rights, within three months from the date of a Chamber judgment, any party to the case may, in exceptional cases, request that the case be referred to the 17 ‑ member Grand Chamber of the Court. In that event, a panel of five judges considers whether the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention or its protocols, or a serious issue of general importance, in which case the Grand Chamber will deliver a final judgment. If no such question or issue arises, the panel will reject the request, at which point the judgment becomes final. Otherwise Chamber judgments become final on the expiry of the three-month period or earlier if the parties declare that they do not intend to make a request to refer. [2] Elected in respect of Liechtenstein. [3] This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.