The applicants were mother and brother of a Roma man who had been stabbed to death by a gang of teenagers. They did not suggest any direct involvement of the state, but complained of inadequacies in the police investigation.
Held: The absence of any direct state responsibility for the death did not exclude the applicability of section 2. The Convention imposed a duty to secure the right to life by putting in place effective criminal law provisions to deter the commission of offences backed by law-enforcement machinery: ‘The Court reiterates that in the circumstances of the present case this obligation requires that there should be some form of effective official investigation when there is reason to believe that an individual has sustained life-threatening injuries in suspicious circumstances. The investigation must be capable of establishing the cause of the injuries and the identification of those responsible with a view to their punishment. Where death results, as in the present case, the investigation assumes even greater importance, having regard to the fact that the essential purpose of such an investigation is to secure the effective implementation of the domestic laws which protect the right to life.’
It was particularly important that the investigation should be pursued with vigour and impartiality where the attack was racially motivated.
Citations:
55523/00, [2007] ECHR 670
Links:
Statutes:
European Convention on Human Rights
Cited by:
Cited – Reynolds, Regina (on the Application of) v Independent Police Complaints Commission and Another CA 22-Oct-2008
The court was asked to consider whether the IPCC could investigate the circumstances leading to the arrest of a suspect who fell into a coma after being arrested for being drunk. The IPCC appealed, saying that it did not have jurisdiction to . .
Cited – McCaughey and Another, Re Application forJudicial Review SC 18-May-2011
The claimants sought a fuller inquest into deaths at the hands of the British Army in 1990 in Northern Ireland. On opening the inquest, the coroner had declined to undertake to hold a hearing compliant with article 2, and it had not made progress. . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Human Rights
Updated: 11 July 2022; Ref: scu.258534