Unjustified violent police raid against a Roma settlement with injuries. Condemnation for degrading treatment and racist motives!
JUDGMENT
Lingurar v. Romania 16.04.2019 (no. 48474/14)
SUMMARY
Raid by 85 policemen in the Roma community in Romania and injury by the applicants. The Court found that there was no justification for the disproportionate use of force during the raid against the applicant’s family members. The applicants were unarmed and never accused of any violent crime. The Court also found that the applicants had been targeted because the authorities considered the Roma community to be criminal. This has resulted in the adoption of racial traits and in acting in a discriminatory manner. Infringement of Article 3 of the ECHR (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) in respect of ill-treatment of the applicant family during the raid. Violation of Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) in conjunction with Article 3 on the grounds that the raid was a racist motive and the research was ineffective.
PROVISIONS
Article 3
Article 14
PRINCIPAL FACTS
The applicants, Aron Lingurar, Ana Maria Lingurar, Aron Lingurar, and Elena Lingurar, are Romanian
nationals who were born in in 1949, 1994, 1985, and 1957 respectively and live in Vâlcele. They are
all Roma.
According to the applicant family, several police officers and gendarmes wearing special intervention
clothing, including balaclavas, broke down their front door during the raid in the early hours of
15 December 2011, dragged them out of bed and beat them. The two male family members were
further abused in the yard, then taken to the local police station for questioning. They were released
the same day with a fine for illegally cutting timber.
The family went to the local hospital after the raid for treatment of abdominal and chest pain, and
bruising. Medical reports for three of the applicants concluded that their injuries could have been
caused by them being hit with hard objects.
In 2012 the family lodged a criminal complaint accusing the law-enforcement authorities of violence.
After an initial investigation concluded that there was not enough evidence to prosecute, the courts
ordered the prosecuting authorities to carry out further enquiries, and in particular to justify the
applicants’ injuries.
The new investigation concluded that the male applicants must have been injured when the police
had had to use force to immobilise them, while the women applicants’ injuries could be explained by
“behaviour specific to Roma”, namely pulling their own hair and slapping themselves on their faces.
The prosecutor also noted that most of the inhabitants of Vâlcele were known for breaking the law
and being aggressive towards the police.
The courts finally dismissed the applicants’ complaints about the prosecutors’ decisions in 2014.
They considered the prosecutors’ explanations for the applicants’ injuries to be plausible and found
that the police officers had not used excessive force.
Both the prosecuting authorities and the courts dismissed the applicants’ allegations that it was a
systematic practice in the area for the police to attack the Roma community.
THE DECISION OF THE COURT
Ill-treatment
The applicants had been left with injuries requiring medical care after the raid, which had attained
the minimum level of severity under Article 3.
The Government had argued that the use of force had been necessary because of the applicants’
aggressive behaviour. However, no proceedings had ever been taken against the applicants for any
violent crime. Indeed, there was nothing to suggest that the four gendarmes responsible for the raid
on the applicants’ home, part of a group of 85 highly trained officers specialised in rapid
intervention, had been overwhelmed by the unarmed applicants.
Moreover, there was no evidence, other than police statements, to corroborate the hypothesis that
the female applicants’ injuries had been self-inflicted.
The Court was therefore not convinced that the force used by law-enforcement officers during the
raid had been proportionate and held that there had been a violation of Article 3.
Racist motives for the police raid
The Court noted that, to justify the raid, the Government had submitted a police intervention plan
which had been drafted before 15 December 2011. The plan made it clear that the raid was to target
ethnic Roma because of their anti-social behaviour and the high crime rate among that group.
Similarly, the investigators had explained the applicants’ alleged aggressiveness by their ethnic traits
or habits “specific to Roma”.
The applicants had thus been targeted because they were Roma and because the authorities had
perceived the Roma community in general as criminal. That showed that the authorities had
automatically connected ethnicity to criminal behaviour. The Court found that that had amounted to
ethnic profiling of the applicants and that it had been discriminatory, in violation of Article 14 taken
in conjunction with Article 3.
Lack of an effective investigation
The Court noted evidence provided by the parties showing that Roma communities were often
confronted with institutionalised racism and were the victims of excessive use of force by the
law-enforcement authorities in Romania. The applicants themselves had complained to the
authorities about such systemic violence during the investigation into their allegations.
In such a situation, the authorities should have done everything possible to investigate whether
discrimination had played a role in the raid. However, both the domestic authorities and courts had
dismissed the applicants’ allegations of discrimination without any in-depth analysis. Indeed, the
prosecution had accepted the police’s justification for the use of force based on a perception that all
Roma were criminals.
It followed that there had also been a violation of Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article 3 as
concerned the investigation.
Given that finding, the Court held that no separate issues arose under Article 3 alone as concerned
the applicants’ complaint that the criminal investigation had been ineffective.
Just satisfaction (Article 41)
The Court held that Romania was to pay each applicant 11,700 euros (EUR) in respect of
non-pecuniary damage and EUR 2,251 in respect of costs and expenses(echrcaselaw.com editing).
