| Applicant name | biba |
| Applicant type | natural person |
| Number of applicants | 1 |
| Country | Albania |
| Application no. | 24228/18 |
| Date | 07/05/2024 |
| Judges | Pere Pastor Vilanova, President, Jolien Schukking, Georgios A. Serghides, Darian Pavli, Peeter Roosma, Andreas Zünd, Oddný Mjöll Arnardóttir |
| Institution | Court |
| Type | Judgment |
| Outcome Art. 8 | Violation |
| Reason | Positive obligation |
| Type of privacy | Private life; relational privacy |
| Keywords | Physical assault |
| Facts of the case | The case concerns the State’s positive obligations under Article 8 of the Convention as regards the manner in which domestic legal mechanisms were applied by domestic authorities in relation to an assault on the applicant’s son by another pupil at the private school they both attended. It further concerns the length of the civil proceedings for compensation in that respect, and the applicant’s right of access to the Constitutional Court, both the subject of the applicant’s complaint under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. |
| Analysis | Four to three majority in favour of finding a violation of ARticle 8 ECHR. The Court is not persuaded that the civil proceedings as carried out in the present case offered a proper protection for the situation at hand, in particular in view of the principle that children and other vulnerable individuals are entitled to effective protection by the authorities, a principle also recognised in Article 54 of the Albanian Constitution. Taking into account the above considerations, the Court finds that the civil remedy available to the applicant in the circumstances of the present case did not provide adequate protection for the applicant’s son against an attack on his physical integrity and that the manner in which the legal mechanisms were implemented in the present case was defective to the point of constituting a violation of the respondent State’s obligations under Article 8 of the Convention, in particular given the paramount importance of the protection of the rights of children. |
| Other Article violation? | Article 6 ECHR |
| Damage awarded | olds, by four votes to three, (a) 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 at the date of settlement: (i) EUR 11,700 (eleven thousand seven hundred euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable, in respect of non-pecuniary damage; (ii) EUR 5,000 (five thousand euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable to the applicant, in respect of costs and expenses; (b) that from the expiry of the above-mentioned three months until settlement simple interest shall be payable on the above amounts at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points; |
| Documents | Judgment |