CEDH · PRESS;CHAMBERJUDGMENTS;ENG — 26 juin 2008

.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 } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; 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 } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .s3DC36BA9 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } .sC7EAD8B { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:underline } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt } EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS   468 24.6.2008   Press release issued by the Registrar   CHAMBER JUDGMENT IAMBOR v. ROMANIA   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment [1] in the case of Iambor v. Romania (application no. 64536/01).   The Court held unanimously that there had been:   a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment and failure to carry out an effective investigation) of the European Convention on Human Rights on account of the ill-treatment inflicted on Simion Iambor while he was held in police custody and of the inadequacy of the investigation carried out into his allegations of ill-treatment; a violation of Article 34 (right of individual petition) on the ground that the Romanian authorities hindered the applicant’s access to the Court.   Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court awarded the applicant 12,000   euros   (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary damage. (The judgment is available only in French.)   1.     Principal facts   The applicant, Simion Iambor, is a Romanian national who was born in 1958 and lives in Beba-Veche (Romania).   He alleged, in particular, that he had been subjected to ill-treatment by a police officer, the mayor of the commune and his deputy and a private citizen while being held in police custody.   At about 2 p.m. on 4 April 1999, Viorel C. went to the police station in Beba Veche, accompanied by the applicant, whom he accused of attempted robbery and of entering his property without authorisation. After spending several hours at the police station, the applicant was subsequently transferred, under escort, to the police station in Sânnicolau Mare; at about 9 p.m. he was taken by police officers to hospital, since he showed signs of physical assault. The medical reports drawn up while he was in hospital from 4   to 8 April 1999, and which are uncontested, indicate that he was suffering from an acute closed facial cranial traumatism and a traumatism to the thorax, as well as numerous bruises, lesions and abrasions on the face and body.   The sequence of events is in dispute between the parties.   The applicant claimed that after being violently apprehended by Viorel C., he was assaulted in the Beba Veche police premises by police officer Costel L. and by three other men, namely Viorel C. and his brother Ioan C., mayor of the commune of Beba Veche, and Tiberiu F., the latter’s deputy. The police officer allegedly hand-cuffed him and attached his feet to the table, then punched and kicked him; he was joined by the three other men, so that the applicant was knocked to the ground, his face covered in blood.   The Romanian Government stated that, as confirmed by the findings of the investigation conducted by the Romanian authorities, the assault to which the applicant was subjected on 4   April 1999 was not carried out by State agents, but by Viorel C. shortly before he brought the applicant to the police station.   The criminal proceedings brought by the applicant, alleging ill-treatment, were terminated by a decision, issued by the Timişoara military prosecutor’s office with regard to police officer Costel L, that there was no case to answer, and by the closure of the criminal case against Tiberiu F., who had died in the course of the investigation. With regard to the allegations of ill-treatment by Viorel and Ioan C., the Sânnicolau Mare court of first instance decided to close the criminal case on 15 March 2001, on the ground that the applicant had been absent from two consecutive hearings and that, consequently, his criminal complaint was to be considered as withdrawn, in accordance with the legislation in force at the relevant time. The applicant appealed unsuccessfully against that decision.   Mr Iambor was imprisoned in September 2001 for actions unrelated to those which gave rise to this application. In order to respond to a request from the Court, the applicant contacted the prison authorities on several occasions from November 2001, asking for a copy of the documents required for examination of his application. In the absence of a favourable response, he went on hunger strike on several occasions. According to the applicant, the military doctors in the prison in which he was detained, whom he had asked to issue various medical certificates, put pressure on him with regard to his application to the Court and refused to issue the documents in question, despite a favourable response from the prison governor.   2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 22 July 2000.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   Josep Casadevall (Andorran), President , Elisabet Fura-Sandström (Swedish), Corneliu Bîrsan (Romanian), Boštjan M. Zupančič (Slovenian), Alvina Gyulumyan (Armenian), Egbert Myjer (Dutch), Ineta Ziemele (Latvian), judges , and also Santiago Quesada , Section Registrar .   3.     Summary of the judgment [2]   Complaints   Relying on Articles 3 (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment) and 34 (right of individual petition), the applicant alleged, in particular, that he had been subjected to ill-treatment while in police custody, and had then been hindered in the exercise of his right of individual petition.   Decision of the Court   Article 3   As to the allegations of ill-treatment   The Court noted that the records prepared by the police just after the applicant’s arrest did not contain any precise description of the latter’s injuries, although it was not contested that he was already injured when he was brought to the police station.   In view of the fact that no information was recorded concerning the seriousness and extent of the injuries from which the applicant was suffering when he arrived at the police station and that it was not until seven hours later that the applicant was taken to a doctor, who ordered that he be hospitalised immediately, the Court noted that it was unable to accept the Romanian Government’s submission that the applicant’s injuries were entirely due to the assault by Viorel C.   Given the vulnerable state of every person in police custody and the importance of the safeguards against arbitrariness with regard to actions by State agents in law-enforcement agencies, the Court considered that the Romanian State had failed to provide a satisfactory explanation for all of the applicant’s injuries. Consequently, it had not shown that the applicant suffered all of the abuse before he entered police hands.   In spite of his injuries, the applicant was kept at the police station for more than seven hours, handcuffed and attached by handcuffs to a chair-leg, before being admitted to hospital by the duty team at the Sânnicolau Mare hospital.   In consequence, the Court noted that the police authorities did not do everything that could reasonably have been expected of them in order to afford to the applicant the level of safeguards required and to avoid the real risks to his health which arose once he had crossed the threshold of the police station. In particular, given the seriousness of the injuries found on the applicant, and even supposing that he had been injured when he arrived at the police station, once the police officers had noted his state of health they ought to have acted promptly and diligently in order to have him seen by a doctor or taken to hospital. Accordingly, the Court concluded that there had been a violation of Article 3. As to the alleged absence of an effective investigation   With regard to the investigation carried out against police officer Costel L., the Court noted that it had already found that military prosecutors who investigated criminal complaints alleging ill-treatment by police officers could not be considered independent. Further, the Court noted that that lack of independence on the part of the prosecutor and the military courts had taken tangible form in the applicant’s case, through the lack of impartiality with which the investigation into the accused police officer was conducted. It noted several shortcomings in the investigation, including the fact that Ioan C. had never been questioned, that the investigating authorities had not examined the contradictions in the statements made by the accused, the seriousness of the injuries sustained by the applicant, and the fact that the only medical forensic examination conducted had not complied with standards.   With regard to the investigation concerning Viorel and Ioan C., the Court noted that the minutes of the first hearing indicated, on the one hand, that the applicant had been absent, and, on the other, that, like the parties present, he had been aware of the date to which the hearing had been postponed. It also noted that the court did not order that the applicant be summoned to the following hearing. Furthermore, a reform had been introduced in 2006 which, among other things, had abrogated the penalty imposed on an injured party in the event of absence from two consecutive hearings, namely closure of the criminal proceedings, which was irremediable and considered clearly disproportionate by the Court. Noting that this reform had restored the balance in favour of victims, the Court nevertheless pointed out that in the present case the applicant had been unable to benefit from those new legal provisions.   In the light of the above findings, the Court considered that the Romanian authorities had not carried out a thorough and effective investigation into the applicant’s allegation of ill-treatment. It therefore concluded unanimously that there had been another violation of Article   3.   Article 34   Even admitting that, as the Romanian Government submitted, the authorities had provided the applicant with the documents requested by the Court in March and August 2003, the Court noted that that had been done with a delay of more than one year.   With regard to the applicant’s allegations concerning the pressure allegedly put on him by the prison doctors, the Court considered that that could be viewed as acts of intimidation which, taken together with the refusal to give the applicant the documents he required in support of his application to the Court, amounted to an interference with the exercise of his right of individual petition. Consequently, there had been a violation of Article 34.     ***   The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Press contacts Tracey Turner-Tretz (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 30) Paramy Chanthalangsy (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 54 91) Sania Ivedi (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 59 45)   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. [1] Under Article 43 of the Convention, 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] This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.