WUNRN
European Court of Human Rights
______________________________________________________
European Women's Lobby
Landmark
Case - Lithuania Held Liable by European Court for Human Rights for
Failure to Investigate Effectively into Complaints of Domestic Violence
(Brussels 28 March 2013) European Court of Human Rights releases judgment in
Valiuliene v. Lithuania
State held liable for failure to investigate effectively into complaints of
domestic violence
The crimes of silence and the complicity of inaction.
What happens when a domestic violence complaint is received by State
authorities? What happens if after a month-long period filled with violence,
abuse and stress, you make your case to the authorities? Ideally, the recourse
to offices of the state is swift, justice is served, and the guilty punished.
You don’t expect for the state to term the ill-treatment you suffered as ‘of a
merely trivial nature’, nor to drag their feet in investigating and prosecuting
the case. But in Lithuania, this violence was tolerated by the State
authorities, allowing the perpetrators to enjoy impunity and the victim to
endure even more abuse. Here, a woman desperately attempting to get protection
from an abusive partner and ignored by the State has had a judgment rule in her
favour from the European Court of Human Rights. But it’s not just silence that
kills seven women a day in Europe. It’s inaction.
The EWL welcomes the recent ECHR judgment against the Lithuanian authorities
who have been found to have violated article 3 of the European Convention on
Human Rights, which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment. The
case is a new landmark case for victims of domestic violence. Treatment has
been held by the Court to be “inhuman” because it was premeditated, was applied
for hours at a stretch and caused either actual bodily injury or intense
physical and mental suffering. Treatment has been considered “degrading” when
it was such as to arouse in its victims feelings of fear, anguish and
inferiority, capable of humiliating and debasing them and possibly breaking their
physical or moral resistance. The Court considered that the ill-treatment of
the applicant, which on five occasions caused her physical injuries, combined
with her feelings of fear and helplessness, was sufficiently serious to reach
the level of severity under of Article 3 of the Convention and thus raise the
Government’s positive obligation under this provision. However, the judgement
is not yet final, and there is a three month window in which Lithuania can
contest the ruling. The applicant was awarded 5000 euros in damages.
Judge Pinto de Alberquerque provided additional insights. "In Valiuliene
the Court is again confronted with the excruciating question of domestic
violence. The legal relevance of lesser forms of violence such as verbal abuse
and minor bodily injuries, the failure to acknowledge the public interest of
prosecuting this form of ill-treatment and the final dismissal of the criminal
case owing to the statute of limitations give to this case all the ingredients
of a leading case, raising fundamental legal issues which have not been dealt
with properly by the majority. With all due respect, the majority said too much
in some respects and yet not enough in others. This is why I voted for the
operative part of the judgment, but cannot subscribe to its motivation."
Domestic violence has emerged as an autonomous human rights violation
consisting in the commission of physical, sexual or psychological harm, or the
threat or attempt thereof, in private or public life, by an intimate partner, an
ex-partner, a member of the household, or an ex-member of the household. Yet a
human rights litigation approach to domestic violence faces three strong
conceptual obstacles, all of them very well entrenched in the history of
democratic societies: respect for privacy, tolerance vis-a-vis different
cultures and the upholding of the rights of defendants. These obstacles can
only be overcome by breaking the classical public-private divide and
acknowledging the State’s positive obligation to act against domestic violence.
States have the obligation not only to bring to justice the alleged offenders
and empower the victims of domestic violence with an active role in the
criminal proceedings, but also to prevent private actors from committing or
reiterating the offence and provide elementary social support measures to
victims, such as post-traumatic care and shelter. Such an international
positive obligation must be acknowledged, in view of the broad and long-lasting
consensus mentioned above, as a principle of customary international law,
binding on all States. This is true in the case of violence against women.
Domestic violence is basically violence against women. All the available data
shows worldwide that domestic violence is in the vast majority of cases violence
perpetrated by men against women, and violence by women against men accounts
for a very small percentage of domestic violence."
In a catalogue of errors, Lithuanian authorities neglected to take appropriate
action, neglected to take the complainant seriously, or to offer her the
protection she deserved and needed. We’ve reached the half point of the Irish
Presidency, and Lithuania will take over the rotating Presidency of the
European Council in little over than three months.......