Exceeding the limits of police violence to a mentally ill person consists of a degrading treatment
JUDGMENT
Boukrourou and others v. France 16.11.2017 (no. 30059/15)
SUMMARY
The case concerns the death of one of the applicants’ relatives during his arrest by the police. The Court noted that, although there was a causal link between the force used by the police officers and the death of the victim, the tragic consequence was not foreseeable and it therefore considered that there was no violation of Article 2 on the protection of the right to life. On the contrary, the ECtHR considered that repeated and ineffective violent acts against a vulnerable individual constituted a violation of human dignity and a breach of the permissible limit, rendering these actions incompatible with Article 3 (degrading treatment) of the Convention, ascertaining its violation.
PROVISIONS
Article 2
Article 3
PRINCIPAL FACTS
The applicants, Abdelkader Boukrourou, Samira Boukrourou, Fatiha Boukrourou, Karim Boukrourou,
Lahoucin Boukrourou and Yamina Hassioui, are French nationals who were born in 1970, 1977, 1973,
1972, 1938 and 1951 respectively and live in Mouroux, Massy, Valentigney and Thaulay (France)
respectively.
On 12 November 2009 M.B. went to a pharmacy in Valentigney where he habitually collected his
medication for psychiatric disorders. The pharmacists refused to exchange medication with which
M.B. was dissatisfied, and he became angry, raising his voice and making incoherent statements; he
told them that he was going to file a complaint and refused to leave the premises. Four police
officers arrived on the scene at 4.53 p.m. and asked him several times to exit the pharmacy. Since he
continued to refuse, they decided to force him out. They seized him by the arm and leg, but he fell
on to the ground at the doorstep to the pharmacy. The police officers then attempted to handcuff
him, one of them punching M.B. twice on the solar plexus. He was finally handcuffed and then
pushed into the police van, where he continued to struggle before falling face down. The police
officers applied pressure to his shoulders, legs and buttocks, continuing in that position even after
he had been fastened to a fixed point on the back seat of the van. At 4.58 p.m. the police officers
requested the assistance of the fire brigade and the emergency medical service. M.B., who had stopped breathing for a time, was taken charge of by the fire brigade, who had arrived at 5.07 p.m., and who eventually transported him inside the pharmacy. Noting the absence of blood circulation, the fire brigade carried out cardiac massage. An emergency doctor administered specialist
cardiopulmonary reanimation, but recorded M.B.’s death at 6.02 p.m.
An investigation was initiated immediately. Hearings were conducted and an autopsy carried out on
13 November 2009. The forensic doctor concluded that the death had clearly been caused by heart
failure brought on by M.B.’s state of stress and agitation. Witnesses were heard and further expert
assessments carried out. On 25 November 2011 the Ombudsperson, to whom a member of
parliament had submitted the case, submitted his report. In March 2012 the four police officers who
had arrested M.B were formally charged with manslaughter consequent upon the manifestly
deliberate violation of the legal or statutory duty of caution and security. In December 2012 the
investigating judges issued a discontinuance decision, finding, in particular, that the force used by
the police officers had been necessary and proportionate. In October 2013 the Investigations
Division of the Court of Appeal upheld that decision, and in November 2014 the applicants’ appeal
on points of law was dismissed.
THE DECISION OF THE COURT
Article 2 (right to life)
As regards the causal link between the force used and M.B.’s death: having regard to the
information at its disposal, the Court noted that the police officers had not used intrinsically lethal
force against M.B. All the forensic reports ruled out death by chest compression, while noting that
M.B. had unwittingly been suffering from atherosclerotic coronary heart disease with approximately
70 % stenosis. According to the experts, M.B. had died suddenly of cardiac rhythm disorders owing
to a coronary spasm triggered by a context of intense and prolonged emotional and physical stress,
in a subject suffering from an atheromatous attack on an artery of the heart. Furthermore, even
though the police operation had created additional tension, M.B. had already been highly
overwrought on his arrival at the pharmacy, long before the police had intervened. Finally, he had
suffered from a serious psychiatric pathology, that is to say a delusional psychosis, which had
explained both the initial altercation with the pharmacist and his state of extreme agitation when
the police officers had attempted to induce him to leave the pharmacy, as their intervention could
have been interpreted “in a delusional manner”, to quote the psychiatric expert.
The Court noted that although there was some causal link between the force used by the police
officers and M.B.’s death, that consequence had not been foreseeable. Even though the police
officers had known that M.B. was undergoing psychiatric treatment, they were unaware of his heart
disease. They therefore could not have envisaged the existence of any danger incurred by the
combination of those two factors – stress and heart disease – liable to present a risk to the victim.
As regards the obligation to protect M.B.’s life: owing to his psychiatric illness, M.B. had been in a
vulnerable situation and the police officers had had a duty to ensure his state of health, as he had
been forcibly placed under their responsibility. In that connection, in the light of the facts which
were noted by the domestic courts and not contested by the parties, the Court considered that the
police officers’ swift request for assistance and the rapid arrival of the emergency services on the
scene enabled any failure by the authorities in their obligation to protect M.B.’s life to be ruled out.
Consequently, the Court held that there had been no violation of Article 2 of the Convention.
Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment)
The Court noted that internal investigations had established that the injuries to M.B.’s body as noted
by the medical experts had indeed been caused by the police officers during his arrest. In response
to M.B.’s refusal to leave the pharmacy, the police officers had moved directly to coercion mode,
attempting to drag him out by force, even though that had been unnecessary. Subsequently, he had
been punched twice on the solar plexus: in fact, the violence of the punches, as attested by the
autopsy report, only intensified M.B.’s agitation and resistance, reinforcing his feeling of
exasperation and incomprehension as to the course of events. Such treatment inflicted on a
vulnerable person who had clearly not understood what the police officers were doing had been
neither justified nor strictly necessary. Lastly, once inside the police van, M.B. had been kept face
downwards, handcuffed to a fixed point and with three police officers standing with their full weight
on various parts of his body. Despite M.B.’s vulnerable situation owing both to his psychiatric illness
and to his status as a person deprived of his liberty, he had been literally trampled underfoot by the
police inside the van.
The Court did, however, note that there was nothing to suggest that the violence inflicted on M.B
had stemmed from any intention on the police officers’ part to humiliate him or make him suffer,
but could be explained by a lack of preparedness, appropriate training and/or equipment. The Court
considered that the repeated and inefficacious violent acts against a vulnerable person constituted
an infringement of human dignity and attained a severity threshold rendering them incompatible
with Article 3 of the Convention. It therefore found a violation.
Just satisfaction (Article 41)
The Court held that France was to pay, in respect of non-pecuniary damage, the applicants Fatiha
Boukrourou, Yamina Hassioui and Lahoucin Boukrourou 6,000 euros (EUR) each, and EUR 4,000 to
each of the applicants Samira Boukrourou, Abdelkader Boukrourou and Karim Boukrourou. It was
also to pay EUR 18,576 jointly to the applicants in respect of costs and expenses(echrcaselaw.com editing).
