issued by the Registrar of the Court

ECHR 111 (2011)

19.07.2011

School boy’s complaints of bullying should have been more

specific to be admissible before the European Court of Human

Rights

In today’s Chamber judgment in the case Đurđević v. Croatia (application

no. 52442/09), which is not final¹, the European Court of Human Rights held,

unanimously, that there had been:

A violation of Article 3 (lack of effective investigation into allegations of ill-

treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights, as regards the failure to

effectively investigate Katica Đurđević’s complaint of police assault; and that

The complaint concerning bullying at Daniel Đurđević’s school was

inadmissible.

The case concerned the complaints by three members of a family of Roma origin about

their ill-treatment by private individuals, by the police and at the son’s school.

Principal facts

The applicants, Đuro Đurđević, his wife Katica Đurđević, and their son Danijel Đurđević,

are three Croatian nationals who were born in 1967, 1966 and 1994 respectively and live

in Kloštar-Ivanić (Croatia).

At about 9.30 in the evening of 16 June 2009, a row erupted between Danijel Đurđević

and a group of men outside a restaurant in Ivanić Grad, because one of the men had

insulted Danijel’s brother on account of his Roma origin and had spat in his food. Verbal

abuse and physical fighting were witnessed at the scene. When the police arrived, the

fighting stopped.

The police officers took Danijel Đurđević, his brother and several other people involved in

the fight, to a police station. According to Katica and Đuro Đurđević, when about an hour

later they arrived at the police station, a police officer pulled Katica roughly from her car,

twisted her arm, punched her in the chest and kicked her in the abdomen. Katica and

Danijel were examined that night at a hospital where it was established that Katica had

suffered contusions of the chest, head and pelvis, and Danijel – contusions on the head

and on the nose.

On 9 July 2009, the police brought charges against several individuals who had

participated in the fight, including Danijel’s brother. The court found all of them, save for

Danijel who was minor at the time, guilty of disturbing public order and peace and issued

1 Under Articles 43 and 44 of the Convention, this Chamber judgment is not final. During the three-month

period following its delivery, any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the

Court. If such a request is made, a panel of five judges considers whether the case deserves further

examination. In that event, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and deliver a final judgment. If the referral

request is refused, the Chamber judgment will become final on that day.

Once a judgment becomes final, it is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for

supervision of its execution. Further information about the execution process can be found here:

www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution

warnings to all and a fine to one of them. In separate proceedings, Danijel was found

guilty of participating in a fight and was reprimanded.

Katica Đurđević was charged with disturbing public peace and verbally insulting a police

officer. She brought a criminal complaint against two police officers for having assaulted

her. The prosecutor rejected her complaint for lack of evidence so she took it before a

court which found that she had not submitted it in the required form.

Starting in December 2008, Danijel’s parents complained several times to various

authorities that their son had been constantly insulted and frequently beaten at school.

Danijel was interviewed by the police in that connection and, in January 2009, the school

authorities issued two reports in reply to those allegations. The reports suggested that

Danijel was a pupil who frequently quarrelled with other students and teachers, that

school representatives had regularly spoken to him in an attempt to tackle his problems,

and that when he had complained about incidents with other students, the pupils

concerned had been warned by the school and the school authorities had also discussed

the matter with the parents.

Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court

Danijel alleged in particular that the authorities had done nothing to identify and punish

those responsible for beating him up during the incident outside the restaurant. His

mother further alleged that she and Danijel had been ill-treated by two off-duty

policemen upon leaving the police station where Danijel had been taken and that the

official investigation into that allegation had been inadequate. All the applicants also

made allegations that Danijel had been frequently insulted and beaten at school due to

his Roma origin and that the authorities had failed to protect him. They relied on

Articles 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) and 8 (right to respect for

private and family life).

The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 14 September

2009.

Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven, composed as follows:

Anatoly Kovler (Russia), President,

Nina Vajić (Croatia),

Peer Lorenzen (Denmark),

Elisabeth Steiner (Austria),

Khanlar Hajiyev (Azerbaijan),

George Nicolaou (Cyprus),

Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (“the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”), Judges,

and also Søren Nielsen, Section Registrar.

Decision of the Court

Row outside the restaurant (Article 3)

The Court found that Danijel’s complaint, that he had been beaten up by private

individuals and that the Croatian authorities had done nothing to punish the

perpetrators, was inadmissible and rejected it.

In particular, the Court held that the participants in the quarrel had been found guilty of

insults and fighting, one of them had been fined and Danijel had been reprimanded in

that connection. Therefore, the national authorities had investigated and established the

facts and, by attributing responsibility for the fight, had acted in line with their duties

under the Convention.

Alleged ill-treatment at the police station (Article 3)

The Court held that, contrary to the Government’s submissions, it had not been

necessary for the applicants to pursue the prosecution of the police officers on their own

by pressing charges. Complaining to the prosecutor about it had been sufficient, and it

had been the prosecutor’s obligation to act upon their complaint.

It then observed that there had been no evidence, apart from Danijel’s and Katica’s

allegations, that the police officers had assaulted them. While the presented medical

documentation had recorded injuries to the applicants, in the absence of a proper

assessment by the national authorities as to what exactly had happened, the Court

concluded that it was not possible to establish whether the police officers had beaten the

applicants. There had, therefore, been no violation of Article 3 as regards the allegations

of police assault.

On the other hand, despite the medical evidence raising at least a reasonable suspicion

that Katica’s injuries might have been caused by the police, the only investigation into

her allegations had been carried out by the very police authorities about which she had

complained. Thus, serious doubts had arisen about their ability to carry out an effective

investigation. In addition, while it had been ultimately the prosecutor’s responsibility to

ensure that the investigation was effective, no independent steps had been undertaken

by the prosecution either. Instead, Katica’s complaint had been dismissed solely on the

basis of the police reports. Consequently, the Court concluded that the national

authorities had failed to carry out an effective investigation into Katica Đurđević’s

complaint of police assault, in violation of Article 3.

Alleged bullying at Danijel’s school (Article 3 and Article 8)

The Court noted that, as the applicants’ complaint concerned violence against Danijel in

school, they had not been required to submit a criminal complaint. The authorities, on

the other hand, had an obligation to act in order to protect people from ill-treatment

even by private individuals, and to secure respect for people’s private life even in the

sphere of relations between individuals.

The Court observed that the medical reports submitted by the applicants had recorded

injuries such as permanent eye damage, complaints of stomach and back pain and

headaches. However, the applicants had never referred to exact dates or circumstances

or any other detail of specific incidents when the injuries might have occurred. Their

complaints had only been worded in vague and general terms. They had never indicated

the exact dates or circumstances or any other detail of specific incidents of Danijel’s

alleged ill-treatment.

In connection with one specific incident signalled by Danijel and his parents, the school

authorities had investigated and established that it had been an accident as another

pupil had turned his head and accidentally hit Danijel. The State authorities therefore

could not have anticipated a risk of it happening and had not been required to have

intervened beforehand in order to protect Danijel.

As regards Danijel’s eye injury, the medical report had not indicated the cause of it or

whether it had been connected with a specific incident of violence at school. Danijel, on

the other hand, had complained that he had been hit by unknown aggressors outside his

school. Yet, he had not referred to a particular incident at school which could have been

the cause of his eye injury.

Consequently, in the absence of more specific allegations about the place, time and

nature of the acts complained of, the Court could not hold the State responsible for not

responding adequately to the alleged violence against Danijel at school. It therefore

rejected that complaint as inadmissible.

Just satisfaction (Article 41)

The Court held that Croatia was to pay Danijel and Katica Đurđević 6,000 euros (EUR) in

respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 1,000 in respect of costs and expenses.

The judgment is available only in English.

This press release is a document produced by the Registry. It does not bind the Court.

Decisions, judgments and further information about the Court can be found on its

Internet site. To receive the Court’s press releases, please subscribe to the Court’s RSS

feeds.

Press contacts

[email protected]e.int | tel: +33 3 90 21 42 08

Kristina Pencheva-Malinowski (tel: + 33 3 88 41 35 70)

Emma Hellyer (tel: + 33 3 90 21 42 15)

Tracey Turner-Tretz (tel: + 33 3 88 41 35 30)

Frédéric Dolt (tel: + 33 3 90 21 53 39)

Nina Salomon (tel: + 33 3 90 21 49 79)

Denis Lambert (tel 33 3 88 41 41 09

The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of

Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European

Convention on Human Rights.