| Applicant name | Y |
| Applicant type | natural person |
| Number of applicants | 1 |
| Country | CZECH REPUBLIC |
| Application no. | 10145/22 |
| Date | 12/12/2024 |
| Judges | Mattias Guyomar, président, Armen Harutyunyan, Gilberto Felici, Andreas Zünd, Diana Sârcu, Kateřina Šimáčková, Mykola Gnatovskyy |
| Institution | Court |
| Type | Judgment |
| Outcome Art. 8 | violation |
| Reason | Positive obligation |
| Type of privacy | Procedural privacy; bodily privacy |
| Keywords | Procedural requirments; quality of law |
| Facts of the case | The applicant complains of the authorities’ restrictive interpretation of the constituent elements of the offences of rape and sexual abuse provided for in Criminal Code no. 140/1961 and that this legal framework was insufficient to effectively punish the sexual offences of which she alleges to have been the victim, as well as of the failure to conduct an effective investigation into her allegations of sexual assault. 36. She relies on Articles 3 and 8 of the Convention, which read as follows in their relevant parts : |
| Analysis | In the Court’s view, the authorities thus failed to carry out a contextual assessment of the credibility of the applicant’s statements, which would have taken into account the development of her relationship with PJ and a situation described by the victim as characterised first by forced intercourse and then by a kind of resignation. Nor did they duly analyse the effect of all the surrounding circumstances, including the applicant’s psychological state, suicide attempts and material distress, all of which enabled them to be aware of her particular vulnerability. Even the municipal prosecutor’s office, which acknowledged that PJ’s actions could have been considered sexual coercion, relied on the results of an investigation it had described as incomplete. t follows that, having regard both to the legal framework in force at the material time and to its application in the present case, the approach adopted by the national authorities in the present case was not capable of guaranteeing the applicant appropriate protection. Accordingly, the Court considers that the respondent State has failed to fulfil its positive obligations, which required it, at least since the adoption in 2003 of the judgment in MC v. Bulgaria, to effectively apply a criminal law system capable of punishing the non-consensual sexual acts alleged by the applicant. It reiterates in this regard that it is not called upon to rule on the criminal liability of the alleged assailant and that its above finding cannot therefore be interpreted as an opinion on PJ’s guilt or as a call for the investigation in the present case to be reopened. |
| Other Article violation? | 3 |
| Damage awarded | that the respondent State is to pay the applicant, within three months from the date on which the judgment becomes final in accordance with Article 44 § 2 of the Convention, the following amounts, to be converted into the currency of the respondent State at the rate applicable on the date of settlement : EUR 25,000 (twenty-five thousand euros), plus any amount that may be due on this sum by way of tax, for non-pecuniary damage ; EUR 4,000 (four thousand euros), plus any amount that may be due on this sum by the applicant by way of tax, for costs and expenses ; |
| Documents | Judgment |