| Applicant name | VESELÝ |
| Applicant type | natural person |
| Number of applicants | 1 |
| Country | THE CZECH REPUBLIC |
| Application no. | 12431/22 |
| Date | 28/11/2024 |
| Judges | Andreas Zünd, President, Kateřina Šimáčková, Mykola Gnatovskyy |
| Institution | Court |
| Type | Judgment |
| Outcome Art. 8 | violation |
| Reason | Positive obligation |
| Type of privacy | Bodily privacy; procedural privacy |
| Keywords | Procedural requirments |
| Facts of the case | The application concerns, in particular, the allegedly insufficient amount of compensation awarded to the applicant on account of medical malpractice (Article 8 of the Convention). |
| Analysis | In the Court’s view, the amount of EUR 790 is considerably lower than the minimum level of compensation generally awarded by the Court in cases of medical malpractice in which it has found a violation of Article 8. Moreover, this disproportion is exacerbated by the fact that two-thirds of that award was ultimately absorbed by the sum that the applicant had to pay to the hospital for the legal fees incurred by it before the Supreme Court. In this regard, the Court observes that like the lower courts, which had exempted the applicant from court fees and had applied a special provision enabling them to refrain from awarding the defendant’s legal fees where the outcome of a case depended largely on the opinion of a medical expert, the Supreme Court ought to have taken account of the specific character of the proceedings before it, in which the applicant sought to protect his rights under Article 8. |
| Other Article violation? | – |
| Damage awarded | Holds (a) that the respondent State is to pay the applicant, within three months, the following amounts, to be converted into the currency of the respondent State at the rate applicable at the date of settlement: (i) EUR 4,000 (four thousand euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable, in respect of non-pecuniary damage; (ii) EUR 2,500 (two thousand five hundred euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable to the applicant, in respect of costs and expenses; |
| Documents | Judgment |