ECtHR, XX and XX v. Spain, No. 1653/13, 2018
- 2018
- Spain
Topics
Membership in a terrorist organisationLegal bases
European Convention on Human RightsCourts
European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)Laws
Torture, degrading and inhuman and treatmentFacts
The two applicants, Spanish nationals, were arrested in 2008 by officers of the Guardia Civil. They complain before the Court that they have been subjected to ill-treatment at the beginning of their incommunicado police custody.
Legal grounds
Article 3 of the ECHR
Findings
The Court held that there had been a violation of Article 3, in its substantive and procedural aspects. It noted in particular that the injuries described in the certificates presented by the applicants had been caused while they were in the hands of the Guardia Civil. Furthermore, neither the domestic authorities nor the Spanish Government had provided any convincing or credible arguments which could serve to explain or justify the injuries sustained by the applicants. The Court thus found that the injuries described had to be attributed to the State. In addition, since the applicants had not alleged that the injuries in question had had any consequences for them in the long term, and in the absence of any conclusive evidence about the aim of the treatment, the Court was of the view that the treatment sustained by the applicants could not be characterised as torture. That being said, it was sufficiently serious to be regarded as inhuman and degrading treatment. The Court then observed that the Spanish Supreme Court had confined itself to dismissing the applicant’s version without considering whether the use of physical force by the officers during their arrest had been strictly necessary and proportionate, or whether the most serious injuries subsequently sustained by the first applicant were attributable to the officers responsible for his detention and supervision. Those omissions had prevented the domestic court from establishing the facts and all the circumstances as fully as it should have done.