Last Updated on January 11, 2024 by LawEuro
European Court of Human Rights (Application no. 29804/16)
The application, lodged under Articles 5, 34 and 38 of the Convention, concerns the compulsory psychiatric treatment of the applicant, who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, following a court order in criminal proceedings against her on a charge of murder.
The applicant complained that her confinement after 19 February 2017 had been unlawful and that throughout her psychiatric detention, she had not had the right under domestic law to challenge its lawfulness, request her release or receive compensation. She relied on Article 5 §§ 1, 4 and 5 and Article 46 of the Convention, stating that the issue disclosed structural and systemic deficiencies in the domestic legal system. The Court considers that the present complaints are to be examined solely under Article 5 of the Convention.
The Government claimed that the applicant was not a victim of the alleged violation of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention since the domestic authorities had expressly acknowledged that her detention within the relevant period had not been in accordance with domestic law and had afforded her redress.
The applicant alleged that the compensation proceedings had been ineffective, as the domestic courts had awarded her a very low amount of compensation which, in any event, had not been paid to her.
The Court notes that the national courts found the applicant’s involuntary hospitalisation after 19 February 2017 to have been unlawful and awarded her UAH 30,000, which at the material time corresponded to 1,000 euros (EUR), in compensation. While the sum awarded is lower than the awards the Court generally makes in comparable cases, where the Court awarded EUR 12,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage for a violation of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention on account of three periods of hospitalisation lasting around two to three months each), the Court observes that the applicant did not challenge the amount of the award by means of an appeal on points of law and did not provide the Court with any explanation regarding her failure to do so. She cannot therefore complain to the Court in respect of this matter.
However, in the absence of evidence that the award has been paid to the applicant, the Court considers that the applicant can still claim to be a victim of a violation of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention in respect of her confinement after 19 February 2017 and accepts the national courts’ findings that her detention in hospital during that period was unlawful.
There has accordingly been a violation of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention in the applicant’s case.
CASE OF TSYOGE FON MANTEYFEL v. UKRAINE (European Court of Human Rights) 29804/16. Full text of the document.
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