CEDH · PRESS;GENERAL;ENG — 19 mai 2004

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .s5FFF0A77 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:1pt } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .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 } .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 } .s9F8EB0C0 { width:18.63pt; display:inline-block } .s9E97F54A { width:85.05pt; display:inline-block } .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 } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 }   EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS   254 19.5.2004   Press release issued by the Registrar   CHAMBER JUDGMENT IN THE CASE OF R.L. AND M.-J.D. v. FRANCE   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing a judgment [1] in the case of R.L. and M.-J.D. v. France (application no. 44568/98).   The Court held: by four votes to three that there had been a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights on account of the treatment inflicted on the applicants; by four votes to three that there had been a violation of Article 5 § 1 (c) of the Convention (right to liberty and security) on account of the first applicant’s arrest; unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 5 § 1 (e) of the Convention on account of the first applicant’s continued detention in the psychiatric infirmary of the Paris police service; unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 5 § 5 as regards the first applicant.   Under Article 41 of the Convention (just satisfaction), the Court awarded: by four votes to three, EUR 35,000 to the first applicant and EUR 10,000 to the second applicant for physical injury and non-pecuniary damage; by six votes to one, EUR 10,000 jointly to the applicants for costs and expenses.   (The judgment is available only in French.)   1.     Principal facts   The applicants, Mr R.L. and Mrs M.-J.D., are French nationals. Mr R.L. was born in 1950 and lives in Paris. Mrs M.-J.D. was born in 1959 and lives in La Varenne. They are both owners of a restaurant in Paris.   For some time the applicants had been in dispute with neighbouring restaurant owners about the use of an emergency exit. In the evening of 2 August 1993 the first applicant fixed a menu to the door of the emergency exit using an electric drill. A short time later, having been called out by the neighbouring restaurant owners complaining of the noise, three police officers in plain clothes burst into the applicants’ restaurant. The parties did not agree about the events which then took place inside the restaurant. The French Government submitted that as soon as they arrived the police officers were insulted by the applicants and an altercation followed. The police officers then had to use force to bring the first applicant under control and spread-eagled him against the counter before handcuffing him. It was submitted that the second applicant, who had been trying to get away, was caught by one of the officers and brought back inside the restaurant dining room.   The applicants asserted that they had refused to accompany the police officers to the police station. While M.-J.D was trying to take photographs as evidence of the officers’ actions the police threw themselves on the applicants. They had spread-eagled the first applicant several times against the counter and repeatedly struck him before handcuffing him. The second applicant had tried to run away, but one of the police officers had seized her by the hair and dragged her to the counter along the ground.   The first applicant was taken to the police station of the 5th district and then to Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, where he was presented to a psychiatrist who, not being able to make a precise diagnosis of his mental state, decided to have him taken to the psychiatric infirmary of the Paris police service (“the IPPP”). The first applicant reached the IPPP at 4.15 a.m. and was seen by a psychiatric intern. At 10.45 a.m. he spoke to a doctor who found that he had no mental condition requiring hospitalisation. He was taken back to the police station and released on 3 August at 12.45 p.m.   On the next day three medical certificates were issued after the first applicant had been examined by two doctors and the second applicant by another. These certificates showed that the applicants had numerous bruises, mainly on the first applicant’s right arm and abdomen and the second applicant’s left thigh. One of the doctors prescribed 6 days’ rest from work for the first applicant and the other prescribed 11 days’ rest.   Following a complaint by the applicants together with an application to join the proceedings as civil parties, the public prosecution service opened an investigation concerning a person or persons unknown on charges of deprivation of liberty, unlawful arrest, false imprisonment, unlawful violence and abuse of authority. A medical report ordered by the investigating judge showed that the violence suffered by the applicants had caused them multiple injuries which had led to total unfitness for work for 10 days in the first applicant’s case and 6 days in the second applicant’s case. On 22 May 1996 the investigating judge discontinued the proceedings. The Indictment Division upheld the discontinuation order, and on 6 May 1998 the Court of Cassation dismissed an appeal by the applicants on points of law.   2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The application was lodged with the Court on 5 November 1998 and declared partly admissible on 20 March 2003. A hearing took place in public at the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on 19 June 2003.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of 7 judges, composed as follows:   Georg Ress (German), President , Ireneu Cabral Barreto (Portuguese), Jean-Paul Costa (French), Lucius Caflisch (Swiss), Boštjan Zupančič (Slovenian), Margarita Tsatsa-Nikolovska (Macedonian), Kristaq Traja (Albanian), judges , and also Vincent Berger , Section Registrar .   3.     Summary of the judgment [2]   Complaints   Relying on Article 3 of the Convention, the applicants complained of the treatment meted out by the police officers. The first applicant complained under Article 5 § 1 (c) that his arrest had been unlawful. In addition, relying on Article 5 § 1 (e), he complained of his hospitalisation in the psychiatric infirmary of the Paris police service. He further complained under Article 5 § 5 that he had not obtained compensation from the French courts for the damage he had sustained on account of the unlawfulness of his detention.   Decision of the Court   Article 3 of the Convention   The medical certificates issued two days after the events in issue and the medical report produced during the judicial investigation showed that the applicants had sustained injuries. The Court noted that it had not in any event been disputed that the police officers had used force during their intervention in order to bring the applicants under control. Accordingly, there was no circumstance which gave grounds for doubting that the pain recorded by the doctors and the marks on the applicants’ bodies had been caused by the coercion used by the police officers during their intervention. Nevertheless, there was nothing in the file to suggest that the police had deliberately struck the applicants.   As to whether the force used by the police officers had been proportionate, the Court noted in the first place that they had never contended that they had reasons to believe the applicants were violent, dangerous or armed. In addition, the file showed that the applicants were not particularly powerfully built. Admittedly, they had not denied struggling at the time. However, the Court considered that the bruises noted were too numerous and too large, and the periods of unfitness for work suffered by the applicants too long to correspond to the use of force made absolutely necessary by the applicants’ conduct. It therefore held that the treatment inflicted on them had been contrary to Article 3 of the Convention.   Article 5 § 1 (c) of the Convention   The police officers had gone to the applicants’ restaurant because they had been accused of making a noise and they had then arrested the first applicant. The Court noted that the offence of committing a nuisance by making noise at night was punishable by a fine and not imprisonment and that the noise had by all accounts ceased by the time the police arrived. The French Government had submitted that the first applicant could be arrested because his conduct had amounted to the offence of insulting a police officer, which was punishable by imprisonment. But there was no indication in the file that the applicants had subsequently been prosecuted on that charge and the first applicant had never been brought before a judge after his arrest. The Court therefore considered that the first applicant’s arrest had not been justified in the light of the acts which could be held against him.   Article 5 § 1 (e) of the Convention   The Court accepted that the first applicant’s first psychiatric examination had been prompted by his agitation and that his transfer to the IPPP had initially been justified by the indecision of the first doctor, who had been unable to make a diagnosis of his mental state. However, the doctor to whom Mr R.L. was presented after his transfer had said that the applicant had remained in the infirmary until the following morning because she was not empowered to release him.   The first applicant’s continued detention at the psychiatric infirmary had therefore had no medical justification, but was attributable to purely administrative reasons. The deprivation of his liberty had therefore no longer been justified under Article 5 § 1 (e).   Article 5 § 5 of the Convention   The first applicant had lodged a complaint with an application to join the proceedings as a civil party, but the criminal prosecution had been discontinued, on the ground that no arbitrary act infringing his individual liberty had been committed. Noting that he had used a remedy available to him without obtaining satisfaction, the Court held that there had been a violation of Article 5 § 5.     Judge Costa expressed a partly dissenting opinion joined by Judges Caflisch and Traja, which is annexed to the judgment.     ***   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) 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] This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.