The obligation of the state to protect mentally ill patients must not lead to a violation of the right to life.

JUDGMENT 

Štefančič v. Slovenia 24-10-2017 (no. 58349/09)

see here

SUMMARY 

Death of a citizen during a police intervention to transfer him to a psychiatric hospital. Excessive violence and lack of research. Breach of the right to life (Article 2).

PROVISION 

Article 2

PRINCIPAL FACTS 

The applicant, Frančiška Štefančič, is a Slovenian national who was born in 1933 and lives in Ajdovščina (Slovenia). The case concerned her son’s death in the course of a police intervention intended to take him to a psychiatric hospital.

The applicant’s son, Branko Štefančič, born in 1961, was suffering from mental illnesses and was admitted to the psychiatric hospital on several occasions. In June 2008 he regularly telephoned and went in person to the Nova Gorica State Prosecutor’s Office, making various delusional accusations. On 19 June 2008 he threatened that he would come back to the Prosecutor’s Office on the next day, armed. The head of the Prosecutor’s Office then contacted the psychiatric hospital where Mr Štefančič had been treated and was advised to suggest to the community health centre that a referral be made for his involuntary confinement. In the early evening of the same day, several police officers, a doctor of the health centre and two medical technicians went to Mr Štefančič’s home.

According to the police report, Mr Štefančič refused to be taken to the psychiatric hospital. He became agitated and verbally aggressive. When he pushed off the medical technicians who were attempting to take him by his arms and then forcefully resisted being handcuffed by the police officers, they used force to push him to the ground. Eventually a medical technician injected him with an antipsychotic drug and, after he had been turned on his stomach, with another medication used to reduce the tremors caused by antipsychotic drugs. A few moments later, the officers and medical technicians noticed that he had vomited, which the doctor attributed to exertion. One medical technician then detected an irregular heartbeat. The medical team began to resuscitate Mr Štefančič, but this was to no avail. At 8.45 p.m. the doctor pronounced him dead.

A preliminary inquiry was carried out into the circumstances of Mr Štefančič’s death, in which the authorities examined the scene of the incident, ordered a forensic report and took statements from Ms Štefančič and the members of the intervention team. The forensic report established that Mr Štefančič had died as a result of asphyxiation caused by aspiration of gastric contents. It considered that the intervention team could not have applied measures to prevent him from inhaling gastric contents, having regard to his aggressiveness. In September 2008 the head of the State Prosecutor’s Office decided that the conditions had not been met to open criminal proceedings.

In January 2009 Ms Štefančič lodged a criminal complaint against the police officers, alleging that her son had died as a result of an unnecessary and unprofessional police intervention. The complaint was rejected in June 2009.

Relying in particular on Article 2 (right to life), Ms Štefančič complained that the State was responsible for her son’s death and that the investigation into the circumstances of his death had been carried out by the authorities to conceal the truth and to avoid liability.

THE DECISION OF THE COURT 

Violation of Article 2

Just satisfaction: EUR 36,000 (non-pecuniary damage)(echrcaselaw.com editing). 


ECHRCaseLaw
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