Last Updated on November 2, 2019 by LawEuro
SECOND SECTION
DECISION
Application no.63067/12
Irina MUNTEANU
against the Republic of Moldova
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 13 March 2018 as a Committee composed of:
Paul Lemmens, President,
Valeriu Griţco,
Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström, judges,
and Hasan Bakırcı, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 18 September 2012,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicant, Ms Irina Munteanu, is a Moldovan national, who was born in 1988 and lives in Ungheni. She was represented before the Court by Mr A. Briceac, a lawyer practising in Chişinău.
The Moldovan Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr L. Apostol.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
In the evening of 16 December 2006 the applicant went to a discotheque. At approximately 2 a.m. of the next day the applicant left the discotheque and went home by herself. On her way home she was attacked and brutally beaten up by unknown persons. She lost consciousness and was discovered the next morning by a passer-by. As a result of the assault the applicant suffered numerous injuries to her head, including fractures of several skull bones, severe head concussion and post-traumatic epilepsy. She spent approximately one month in hospital and became disabled.
A police investigation was initiated on the same date by the Ungheni police station and formal criminal proceedings were initiated on 20 December 2006. The investigators in charge of the case examined the place of the assault and collected all available pieces of evidence. They conducted several forensic expert exams in order to determine whether the victim’s clothes contained samples of blood of other persons. Between the date of the initiation of the proceedings and July 2006 approximately fifteen witnesses were questioned, including all of the victim’s friends and acquaintances who were with her at the discotheque on 16 December 2006 and several night guards who were on duty in the vicinity of the place where the assault took place. The investigators also questioned the applicant and her former boyfriend and attempted to find a car which the applicant had seen on the night of the assault. In March 2007 a forensic medical examination of the applicant was carried out.
On 25 July 2007 the applicant received a text message on her mobile phone with a threat and a reminder of her assault. After that event, the investigation focused on finding the person who had sent her the message and identifying persons who would have had reasons to hold grudge against the applicant and/or her family.
The investigators eventually discovered the owner of the telephone from which the message had been sent, but to no avail because the telephone had been recently purchased by him and had its International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) changed.
In October 2007 the applicant’s mother complained to the Ungheni prosecutor’s office about the ineffectiveness of the investigation into the circumstances of her daughter’s ill-treatment. On 25 October 2007 a prosecutor of the Ungheni district wrote to the Ungheni police station and the Ministry of Internal Affairs that the investigators working on the case had failed to implement his indications and to conduct a proper investigation into the circumstances of the case.
On 13 November 2007 the Ungheni police station informed the prosecutor that the investigators responsible for the investigation of the case were disciplined by way of admonishment.
In 2008 the applicant’s mother complained on several occasions about the inefficiency of the investigation. As a result, on 8 December 2008, the Prosecutor General’s Office informed her that the case had been withdrawn from the Ungheni Police Station and transmitted to the General Directorate of Criminal Investigation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
In the meantime, the investigation continued and the investigators in charge of the case questioned all persons who could have had the slightest reason to hold grudge against the applicant and/or her family. They also questioned other persons who could have knowledge about the assault.
On 28 January 2009 the investigation was discontinued. The applicant’s mother alleged to have learned about the discontinuation in May 2012, when she complained to the Prosecutor General’s Office and, as a result, the investigation was re-opened.
In May 2013, at the applicant’s mother’s request, the investigators ordered the conduct of a forensic biological investigation of a jacket found at the place of the victim’s assault. The investigators asked the forensic authorities to determine the traces of perspiration on the jacket and the sex of the person to whom those traces belonged. The results of the forensic investigation were not helpful because the experts were unable to give answers to the questions put by the investigators. The experts explained that they could only identify the sex of the person by his or her blood and not perspiration.
The investigation was discontinued again on 8 October 2013 and the applicant did not challenge that decision.
COMPLAINT
The applicant complained under Article 3 of the Convention that the State did not discharge its obligation to investigate her allegations of ill‑treatment in an effective and timely manner.
THE LAW
Article 3 of the Convention reads as follows:
Article 3
“No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
The Government submitted that the State’s procedural obligation in the present case was one of means and not of result. They stated that all necessary measures had been taken and the complaint was ill-founded.
The applicant submitted that the investigation was not prompt and effective within the meaning of Article 3 of the Convention. She made reference to the criticism expressed in respect of the investigation by the Ungheni prosecutor’s office and to the fact that the Ungheni police station accepted the criticism and disciplined the investigators. The applicant also submitted that the investigators only ordered a forensic investigation in respect of her state of health in March 2007 and that a biological expert examination was carried out only six years after the assault at her mother’s request.
The Court reiterates that the obligation of the High Contracting Parties under Article 1 of the Convention to secure to everyone within their jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined in the Convention, taken together with Article 3, requires States to take measures designed to ensure that individuals within their jurisdiction are not subjected to ill-treatment, including ill-treatment administered by private individuals (see A. v. the United Kingdom, 23 September 1998, § 22, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1998‑VI; Z and Others v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 29392/95, §§ 73-75, ECHR 2001-V; and E. and Others v. the United Kingdom, no. 33218/96, 26 November 2002).
In a number of cases Article 3 of the Convention has been found to give rise to a positive obligation to conduct an official investigation (see Assenov and Others v. Bulgaria, 28 October 1998, § 102, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1998‑VIII). Such a positive obligation cannot be considered, in principle, to be limited solely to cases of ill-treatment by State agents (see, mutatis mutandis, Calvelli and Ciglio v. Italy [GC], no. 32967/96, ECHR 2002-I).
Having examined the materials of the domestic case-file, the Court notes that the investigators in charge of the case questioned the witnesses and all the possible eyewitnesses in a very prompt manner, namely within the first several weeks after the event. Later the investigative measures became scarcer because the investigators lacked leads. However, as soon as the applicant received a text message with a threat in July 2007, the investigators focused on finding the sender of that message and all persons who could hold any grudge against the applicant and her family and could have ordered the assault.
It is true that the Ungheni prosecutor’s office criticised the manner in which the investigation took place and that the Ungheni police station accepted the criticism resulting in the admonishment of the investigators in charge of the case. However, those events cannot on their own lead to a finding of a breach of Article 3 by the State.
In that respect, it is to be noted that the only shortcomings the applicant pointed at were the fact that her medical forensic investigation had been ordered only in March 2007 and that a biological expert examination had been carried out only six years after the assault, at her mother’s request. In this respect the Court notes that the investigators were well aware of the serious nature of the injuries received by the applicant from the very beginning, namely from the moment when the investigation was initiated. In so far as the biological expert examination is concerned, it is clear from the report that it did not contribute to anything in the investigation.
Given the circumstances of the case and the manner in which the investigation was conducted, the Court considers that the respondent State did not fail to fulfil its obligations under Articles 3 of the Convention. In this connection, the Court reiterates that the State’s procedural obligation in the present case was one of means and not of result (see Adalı v. Turkey, no. 38187/97, § 223, 31 March 2005).
The application is therefore manifestly ill-founded and inadmissible within the meaning of Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 5 April 2018.
Hasan Bakırcı Paul Lemmens
Deputy Registrar President
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