issued by the Registrar of the Court

ECHR 276 (2022)

08.09.2022

Croatian authorities failed to investigate rape victim’s allegation of death

threats by her rapist during his prison leave

The case J.I. v. Croatia (application no. 35898/16) concerned a rape victim’s complaint that the

authorities had not taken seriously her allegation that her rapist – her father – had threatened to kill

her during prison leave.

In today’s Chamber judgment¹in the case the European Court of Human Rights held, by six votes to

one, that there had been:

a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European

Convention on Human Rights because of the lack of an effective investigation into her complaint.

The Court found in particular that even though the applicant had informed the police on three

occasions of a serious threat to her life by her rapist, they had never even commenced criminal

enquiries, let alone opened an investigation.

The authorities had been well aware that the applicant was particularly vulnerable as a Roma

woman and victim of serious sexual offences and should therefore have reacted promptly and

efficiently to protect her from her rapist’s threat being carried out as well as from intimidation,

retaliation and repeat victimisation².

A legal summary of this case will be available in the Court’s database HUDOC (link)

Principal facts

The applicant, Ms J.I., is a Croatian national who was born in 1988 and lives in Zagreb (Croatia).

In May 2009 her father, B.S., was convicted of multiple acts of rape against her and sentenced to

eight years’ imprisonment.

Following the conviction, the applicant started a new life, changing her name, hairstyle and place of

residence and undergoing extensive therapy.

In 2015 she contacted the police on three separate occasions to report that her father was

threatening her.

On the first occasion, on 11 August 2015, she thought that her father had escaped from prison

because she had heard from family that he had been looking for her and had threatened to kill her

because he held her responsible for his imprisonment. The police told her that he had in fact been

granted prison leave and that there was no point in drawing up a report “since nothing ha[d] actually

happened.”

Then, on 3 September 2015, she called the police when she saw her father waiting in a bus station.

She hid in a nearby shop until the police arrived and escorted her and her father to their respective

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.

2 A legal term meaning “a situation when the same person suffers from more than one criminal incident over a specific period of time.”

See the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers Recommendation Rec(2006)8.

buses, ensuring no contact. The subsequent police report recorded that the applicant had told the

intervening police officers that her father had threatened to kill her through her relatives.

Lastly, she wrote a letter to the police on 22 September 2015, complaining about their failure to

react to her concerns and requesting measures to protect her. This led to an internal police

investigation; however, no misconduct or shortcomings were found.

The police did not start a criminal investigation on any of these three occasions.

The applicant lodged a constitutional complaint about the domestic authorities’ failure to protect

her from her father’s intimidation and repeat victimisation and to effectively investigate his threats,

alleging also that she had been discriminated against as a woman of Roma ethnicity. It was declared

inadmissible in December 2015.

In the meantime, the prison authorities had suspended B.S.’s prison leave at the applicant’s request.

He was released from prison in April 2016 and expelled from Croatia to his country of origin, Bosnia

and Herzegovina. He has since died.

Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court

Relying in particular on Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), the applicant

complained that the authorities had failed to protect her from her rapist’s intimidation and repeat

victimisation and to effectively investigate his death threats. She also submitted that her allegations

had not been taken seriously because of her Roma ethnicity, in breach of Article 14 (prohibition of

discrimination).

The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 17 June 2016.

The European Roma Rights Centre was granted leave to intervene in the proceedings as a third

party.

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

Marko Bošnjak (Slovenia), President,

Péter Paczolay (Hungary),

Krzysztof Wojtyczek (Poland),

Alena Poláčková (Slovakia),

Erik Wennerström (Sweden),

Ioannis Ktistakis (Greece),

Davor Derenčinović (Croatia),

and also Renata Degener, Section Registrar.

Decision of the Court

Article 3

The applicant maintained that she had lived in fear from the moment she learned that her father

had been granted prison leave. The Court did not doubt that that fear had been genuine, noting that

she was a highly traumatised Roma woman who had been the victim of appalling sexual abuse by

her father at a very early age. It considered that the threats, coupled with the anxiety and feelings of

powerlessness she had to have felt, had amounted to inhuman treatment with the meaning of

Article 3 of the Convention.

The authorities had therefore had a duty to investigate the applicant’s allegations, both under

domestic law and the European Convention. However, the police had never even commenced

criminal enquiries, let alone opened an investigation into the applicant’s allegations.

The authorities had moreover never made a serious attempt to take a holistic view of the applicant’s

case, including the domestic violence she had previously been exposed to, which was a requirement

in this type of case.

The Court concluded that the Croatian authorities had failed to effectively investigate a particularly

vulnerable rape victim’s allegation of a serious threat to her life, in violation of Article 3 of the

Convention.

The Court also found that neither the circumstances of the case nor any relevant evidence such as

statistics substantiated the applicant’s allegation of discrimination on the grounds of her Roma

origin. Nevertheless, the authorities had been well aware of the applicant’s particular vulnerability

as a Roma woman and victim of serious sexual offences, and they should therefore have reacted

promptly and efficiently to protect her from her rapist’s threat being carried out as well as from

intimidation, retaliation and repeat victimisation.

In view of that finding, the Court held, by six votes to one, that there was no need to give a separate

ruling on the applicant’s remaining complaint under Article 3.

Article 14

Given that the Court had already taken into account the applicant’s particular vulnerability in its

examination of her complaints under Article 3, it held unanimously that no separate issues arose

under Article 14.

Article 41 (just satisfaction)

The Court held, by six votes to one, that Croatia was to pay the applicant 12,000 euros (EUR) in

respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 4,500 in respect of costs and expenses.

Separate opinions

Judge Wojtyczek and Derenčinović expressed partly dissenting opinions.

The judgment is available only in English.

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