The case had been brought by a member of Armenia's main political opposition party, the People's Party of Armenia (PPA). He alleged, amongst other things, that he was arrested shortly after he was involved in an opposition rally and tortured while in police custody and that no proper investigation followed his reporting of this. He further claimed that the treatment against him was politically motivated. The Court found that Armenia had breached both the substantive element of Article 3, as the policemen's actions amounted to torture, and the procedural element of Article 3, due to the failure to conduct a proper investigation. It also found that the procedural breach of Article 3 was discriminatory. 

 

In this case, the Government argued that the Applicant's injuries were the result of an incident which he provoked and therefore, he had not been subjected to ill-treatment in violation of Article 3 when in police custody. It also argued that the Applicant had not provided any evidence to substantiate the allegation that the treatment was discriminatory and was because of his political beliefs. 

 

In deciding this case, the Court repeated its previously expressed view that any recourse to physical force against a person deprived of his liberty, which is not strictly necessary, diminishes human dignity and is in principle an infringement of Article 3. It went on to state that when injuries occur during detention “strong presumptions of fact will arise in respect of [those] injuries” and the authorities will be required to provide a “satisfactory and convincing” explanation. In the current case, however, the explanation was “highly dubious and implausible”. Therefore, the Court held that there had been a substantive violation of Article 3. 

 

As to the allegation of a procedural violation of Article 3, the Court reiterated the state's obligation to carry out an official investigation when a claim of ill-treatment by the police has been raised. It outlined that the investigation must be thorough; include reasonable steps to enable the securing of evidence; be expedient; and be both institutionally and practically independent. In this case, the Court noted a number of shortcomings in the investigation and concluded that the investigation into the allegations of ill-treatment was “ineffective, inadequate and fundamentally flawed” and constituted a procedural violation of Article 3.

 

The Court also held that this procedural breach of Article 3 was discriminatory. It found that the government had failed to satisfactorily investigate the alleged political motives for the Applicant's ill treatment. The Court, applying reasoning from previous cases related to violence alleged to be racially motivated (e.g. Nachova and others), noted that when investigating violence, states have an additional duty to “take all reasonable step to unmask any political motive and to establish whether or not intolerance towards a dissenting political opinion may have played a role in the events.” To treat politically motivated violence on an equal footing with cases which have no political overtones “would be to turn a blind eye to the specific nature of acts that are particularly destructive of fundamental rights” and would amount to a failure to treat distinct situations differently in a way which is unjustified under Article 14. 

 

ERT welcomes the fact that the ECtHR has now confirmed that a failure to investigate plausible allegations that torture was politically motivated amounts to a breach of Article 14 together with the procedural element of Article 3. However, it notes with concern how difficult it is to prove the discriminatory motivation for ill-treatment to the extent required for the ECtHR to be prepared to make a finding of a breach of Article 14 together with the substantive aspect of Article 3. The Court decision is a step in the right direction but there is further to go.

 

To read the ECtHR Judgment, click here. 

 

To read ERT’s Case Summary, click here.