| Applicant name | M.Ș.D. |
| Applicant type | natural person |
| Number of applicants | 1 |
| Country | ROMANIA |
| Application no. | 28935/21 |
| Date | 03/12/2024 |
| Judges | Lado Chanturia, President, Faris Vehabović, Tim Eicke, Jolien Schukking, Lorraine Schembri Orland, Ana Maria Guerra Martins, Sebastian Răduleţu |
| Institution | Court |
| Type | Judgment |
| Outcome Art. 8 | violation |
| Reason | positive obligation |
| Type of privacy | bodily integrity; informational privacy; procedural privacy |
| Keywords | Revenge porn |
| Facts of the case | The case concerns the national authorities’ response relating to the applicant’s complaint concerning alleged acts of online harassment committed by her former intimate partner from motives of revenge consisting of the public dissemination without her consent of intimate photographs of her. The applicant relies on Articles 6, 8 and 14 of the Convention. |
| Analysis | The District Court confirmed the decision of the prosecutor’s office in respect of the offence of violation of private life without expressly touching on the applicant’s arguments that it had been unlawful and, particularly, that domestic practice regarding the interpretation of Article 226 of the CC in the relevant regard was inconsistent. At the same time, it quashed the decision of the prosecutor’s office in respect of the offence of computer-related forgery and instructed it to resume the investigation in respect of that offence. Nonetheless, the prosecutor’s office refused to follow the court’s instructions for reasons which were not only essentially deemed unlawful by the national courts, but which the Court also finds surprising, given that in January 2022 the investigation could have been closed purely on the grounds that the statutory limitation period in respect of the offence in question had expired in November 2021. The Court finds the prosecutor’s office’s decision particularly worrying, given that it signals a blatant refusal to follow a court’s instructions, even though – as pointed out by the District Court – it was lawfully obliged to do so. The Court notes also that, even though the District Court appears to have shared the applicant’s view that the investigation should have been reopened again (, the court could no longer do so because the statutory limitation period in respect of the offence of computer-related forgery, similarly to the investigation in respect of the offences of harassment and threating, had expired. There is no doubt that the authorities were or should have been fully aware from the very start of the proceedings of the specific date on which the statutory limitation period for each of the offences under investigation could expire, given the absence of any apparent possible misapprehension about the dates in question for reasons connected, for example, to changes in the relevant national legislation or case-law. Nevertheless, they failed to comply with their inherent obligation to conduct an investigation that ended before the limitations in question expired. The Government have not pointed to any convincing evidence that the applicant was responsible in any way for the limitation period expiring, given that she had presented the investigators with all the pertinent information and evidence about V.C.A.’s acts sufficiently early in the proceedings to afford them ample time to investigate and to assign the appropriate legal classification to V.C.A.’s acts and to bring him to justice. The Court considers that the authorities’ above-mentioned failure and its effects shed further doubts on their ability and willingness to conduct a prompt and thorough investigation in the applicant’s case, which was vital for maintaining public confidence in their adherence to the rule of law and in preventing any appearance of collusion in or tolerance of unlawful acts. |
| Other Article violation? | Holds that there is no need to examine separately the admissibility and merits of the complaint under Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article 8 of the Convention; |
| Damage awarded | (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 700 (seven hundred euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable, in respect of pecuniary damage; (ii) EUR 7,500 (seven thousand five hundred euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable, in respect of non-pecuniary damage; (iii) EUR 125 (one hundred and twenty-five euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable to the applicant, in respect of costs and expenses; |
| Documents | Judgment |