CASE OF W. v. SLOVENIA
Violation of Article 3 - Prohibition of torture (Article 3 - Effective investigation) (Procedural aspect)
Aleš Pejchal;Angelika Nußberger;Ann Power-Forde;Ganna Yudkivska;Helena Jäderblom;Mark Villiger
5. The applicant was born in 1971 and lives in Maribor. 6. On the night of 13 April 1990 the applicant, then eighteen years old, was raped by a group of seven males. Three other males allegedly participated: one as an aider and abettor and two others by committing a sexual assault on her. Five of the accused had not yet reached the age of majority (eighteen years) at the time of the commission of the criminal acts and were accordingly tried as juveniles. 7. In September 1990 criminal charges of rape, aiding and abetting rape and sexual assault were brought against the accused. All of them submitted in their defence that the applicant had voluntarily engaged in sexual activity with them. 8. The court held a number of hearings and obtained expert reports. An expert in clinical psychology found that the applicant had a learning disability and that she had not been physically or mentally capable of offering serious resistance. 9. On 13 November 1990 the Maribor Basic Court rendered a judgment acquitting the defendants of all charges. The verdict was based on the findings that the applicant had not seriously resisted sexual intercourse, that she had changed her testimony regarding the events surrounding one of the rape charges during the proceedings and that the defendants could not be considered to have employed force or threats which would be objectively capable of breaking the victim’s resistance. 10. The Public Prosecutor appealed against the judgment. 11. On 10 April 1991 the Maribor Higher Court quashed the first-instance judgment, finding that the facts had been insufficiently established. It ordered that the case be remitted to the first-instance court for fresh consideration before a different panel, without the participation of the judges who had delivered the impugned judgment. 12. In July 1991 the Maribor Basic Court conducted inquiries in order to establish the place of residence of two of the defendants. However, as the two defendants had allegedly emigrated to Austria, they could not be found. Several more inquiries were made in 1995, 1999, 2000 and 2001, but all attempts at establishing these two defendants’ whereabouts proved unsuccessful. 13. Between 10 March 1995 and 31 August 2000 the applicant sent at least eight letters urging the Maribor District Court (previously called the Maribor Basic Court) to accelerate the proceedings and/or asking for a case review by the president of the court owing to delays in scheduling the first retrial hearing. 14. In the period from 20 May 1999 to 25 September 2001 the court scheduled five hearings, all of which were, however, adjourned for failure of some of the defendants to appear. 15. On 5 January 2001 the Director of the Department for Judicial Administration at the Ministry of Justice informed the applicant that the court had encountered difficulties identifying some of the defendants’ residences. He also noted that between 28 May 1990 and 27 September 2000 there had been frequent changes of the presiding judge in her case due to judges being promoted. He mentioned that in the aforementioned period seven different judges had been dealing with the case. 16. Following this information, on 9 March 2001 the applicant suggested that the charges against the two defendants, one charged with rape and the other with aiding and abetting rape, who were allegedly residing in Austria and could not be found, be severed into a separate case and an international arrest warrant be issued against them. 17. On 29 May 2001 the Maribor District Court issued a detention order against the two defendants, which served as a legal basis for the issuing of the international arrest warrant. 18. On 22 November 2001 the court held the first hearing, followed by four more. It also obtained reports from two experts, one in neuropsychiatry and the other in clinical psychology. 19. On 4 June 2002 the court found one defendant guilty of rape under the first paragraph of Article 180 of the Penal Code and five defendants guilty of aggravated rape under the second paragraph of Article 180 of the Criminal Code. Regardless of the fact that they were tried as juveniles, the rules of sentencing applicable to adults applied to them as they had all reached the age of twenty-one before the judgment was given. The defendants were sentenced to prison sentences ranging from eight months to one year on account of, inter alia, the significant passage of time from the commission of the crime until their conviction. However, the court concluded that prison sentences were appropriate in order to make the defendants realise the gravity of their offences, particularly as they had not shown any genuine regret over the criminal acts committed against the applicant who continued to suffer from the consequences thereof. Lastly, the court acquitted the two defendants who had been charged with sexual assault. 20. The convicted defendants appealed; however, their appeals were dismissed by the Maribor Higher Court on 25 January 2006. Their subsequent extraordinary appeals (requests for the protection of legality) were also dismissed by the Supreme Court on 12 July 2007. 21. The defendant charged with aiding and abetting the rape of the applicant, whose whereabouts had been unknown and whose case had been separated from the main proceedings, was extradited to Slovenia on 9 March 2004. On 30 March 2004 the court held a hearing and found the defendant guilty. He was sentenced to eight months in prison. The defendant’s subsequent appeal was dismissed on 4 August 2004. 22. The other missing defendant was arrested in Slovakia and detained on 21 February 2003. After having been extradited to Slovenia, the court held hearings on 4 and 5 September 2003 and on the latter date convicted him of aggravated rape under the second paragraph of Article 180 of the Penal Code. He, too, was sentenced to eight months in prison. He appealed against the verdict; however, on 9 June 2006 his appeal was dismissed by the Maribor Higher Court. 23. On 22 September 1995 the applicant lodged a civil claim against all ten defendants and a number of the defendants’ parents, seeking compensation for non-pecuniary damage she had sustained as a result of the rape. 24. On 17 June 2002 the civil panel of the Maribor District Court stayed the civil proceedings pending a final decision in the criminal proceedings. The civil trial was resumed in November 2007. 25. Subsequently, two hearings were held and on 21 January 2009 the first instance court gave a judgment awarding the applicant 16,691.70 euros (EUR), together with default interest. The applicant and some of the respondent parties appealed. On 10 March 2010 the Maribor Higher Court upheld the applicant’s appeal and dismissed the respondents’ appeal. In the civil retrial, the District Court found that the two respondents who had initially been excluded from liability for damages owing to their acquittal in the criminal proceedings were jointly liable for the damages awarded to the applicant. 26. One of the two respondents appealed against the judgment, but on 9 November 2011 the Maribor Higher Court dismissed his appeal. 27. Following unsuccessful settlement negotiations with the State Attorney’s Office, on 30 November 2009 the applicant lodged a claim with the Celje Local Court seeking compensation in the amount of EUR 5,000, the maximum amount that could be awarded for non-pecuniary damage incurred as a result of the length of the criminal proceedings. She relied on the Protection of the Right to a Trial without Undue Delay Act (hereinafter “the 2006 Act”). She submitted that her interest in the criminal proceedings had not only been of a pecuniary nature but also aimed at safeguarding her rights under Article 3 of the Convention. 28. On 16 November 2010 the court rendered a judgment, finding that the applicant’s right to trial within a reasonable time had been breached and that the State was to pay EUR 5,000 to the applicant, together with default interest. The court pointed out that the overall duration of the proceedings had amounted to fifteen years and nine months, noting in particular the lack of any activity between April 1991 and March 2001. Moreover, it observed that the applicant’s case had involved two major criminal acts, a gang rape and a sexual assault, which, in addition to posing a considerable threat to society, had caused severe mental distress to the applicant. The court emphasised that due to the nature of these criminal acts committed against her, the criminal proceedings ought to have been conducted in a particularly diligent, determined and prompt manner; however, that had not been the case. It was further noted that the lengthy proceedings had been extremely stressful for the applicant, who had been forced to relive the painful events too many times, in addition to which she had had no effective remedies at her disposal in order to accelerate the proceedings. Thus, having regard to the importance of the case for the applicant and the lengthy period of absence of any procedural acts on the part of the criminal court, the court deviated from the general practice of the domestic authorities to award, within the statutory range of between EUR 300 and 5,000, 45% of the sum that would be awarded for a violation of the right to trial within a reasonable time by the Court. Thus, the applicant was awarded the maximum amount possible under the 2006 Act, although she would have apparently not been entitled to such amount purely on the basis of the excessive length of proceedings. 29. The applicant and the State Attorney lodged appeals. On 4 August 2011 the Celje Higher Court modified the first-instance judgment in so far as it concerned the costs of proceedings. It rejected the remainder of the appeals. 30. On 13 October 2011 the applicant lodged a constitutional appeal and initiative petition for the review of the constitutionality of the 2006 Act in so far as it limited the maximum amount to be awarded for a violation of the “reasonable time” requirement to EUR 5,000. She alleged that the statutory limitation of compensation in this manner was unconstitutional, as the maximum amount did not constitute sufficient redress for particularly arduous cases such as her own. 31. On 10 February 2012 the Constitutional Court rejected the constitutional appeal as inadmissible. Consequently, the applicant’s petition for the review of the constitutionality of the 2006 Act’s limitation on compensation was also rejected, as the court held that the possible annulment of the challenged statutory provision could not have had any legal effects on the applicant’s position. 32. At the time of the incident, the applicable criminal law was the 1977 Criminal Code of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia. However, in the course of the retrial proceedings, a new Criminal Code was adopted in 1994 introducing more lenient sentences for the criminal offences of rape and aggravated rape. In accordance with the general principle of domestic criminal law that a law more lenient on the perpetrator may be applied retroactively, Article 180 of the 1994 Criminal Code was used in the proceedings, which reads, in so far as relevant, as follows: “(1) Whoever compels a person of the same or opposite sex to submit to sexual intercourse with him by force or threat of imminent attack on life or limb shall be sentenced to imprisonment for not less than one and not more than ten years. (2) If the offence under the preceding paragraph has been committed in a cruel or extremely humiliating manner or successively by at least two perpetrators or against an offender serving a sentence in a closed or semi-open type of penal institution, the perpetrator(s) shall be sentenced to imprisonment for not less than three years. ...” 33. Section 286(2) of the Criminal Procedure Act 1994 provides that the presiding judge shall schedule a first trial hearing within two months of receipt of the indictment. If he fails to do so, he must inform the president of the court thereof, and the latter is required to take the necessary steps to schedule the hearing. A provision to this effect was also included in the previously applicable Criminal Procedure Act 1977. 34. According to Article 179 of the Code of Obligations, which constitutes the statutory basis for awarding compensation for non-pecuniary damage, such compensation may be awarded in the event of the infringement of a person’an award. 35. Under Section 2 of the 2006 Act, the right to a trial within a reasonable time is guaranteed to, amongst others, injured parties in criminal proceedings. Section 16 of the Act provides for a compensatory remedy and fixes the maximum amount that may be awarded. It reads as follows: “(1) Monetary compensation shall be payable for non-pecuniary damage caused by a violation of the right to a trial without undue delay. Strict liability for any damage caused shall lie with the Republic of Slovenia. (2) Monetary compensation in respect of individual, finally decided cases shall be awarded in an amount of between 300 and 5,000 euros. (3) When deciding on the amount of compensation, the criteria referred to in section 4 of this Act shall be taken into account, in particular the complexity of the case, the actions of the State, the actions of the party [making the claim] and the importance of the case for that party.”