CASE OF SCIACCA v. ITALY
Violation of Art. 8;Pecuniary damage - claim dismissed;Non-pecuniary damage - finding of violation sufficient;Costs and expenses partial award
Nicolas Bratza
6. The applicant was born in 1949 and lives in Syracuse. 7. She was a teacher at a private school in Lentini (Syracuse). The school was owned by a limited liability company, G., of which the applicant and three other teachers were members and Mr G. the manager. 8. In July 1998 Mrs C. lodged a criminal complaint with the Revenue Police (Guardia di Finanza) about irregularities in the management of the school's affairs. She stated that she was a de facto member of G. 9. The Syracuse public prosecutor's office opened an investigation in respect of the members and manager. On 20 July 1998 the Revenue Police searched the company's head office and the members' homes. At that time the applicant received official notification that she was under investigation. On an unspecified date the public prosecutor's office ordered the applicant to be questioned and informed her that she and the other persons charged were suspected of committing extortion, fraud and forgery. On 12 August 1998 the Revenue Police questioned the applicant. 10. On 17 November 1998 the public prosecutor's office asked the investigating judge to issue an arrest warrant against the applicant and certain other persons on charges of criminal association, tax evasion and forgery of official documents. On 28 November 1998 the investigating judge ordered Mrs Sciacca and the other persons charged to be placed under house arrest. 11. On 4 December 1998 the applicant was served with the judge's decision. Like anyone placed under house arrest, she avoided being remanded in custody. However, the Revenue Police compiled a file on her; photographs and fingerprints were included in it. On the same day the deputy public prosecutor responsible for the investigation and officers from the Revenue Police gave a press conference. 12. Two newspapers published articles about the investigation. 13. The first daily, Giornale di Sicilia, published two articles, on 5 and 6 December 1998. In the first one it referred to “alleged formal and substantive illegalities in the management of a private school”. After stating that the applicant and three others, who had been placed under house arrest, had been charged with very serious offences (criminal association, extortion, forgery, fraud and tax evasion), the newspaper indicated that other persons charged “were allegedly also” victims of acts of extortion committed by the four people who had been arrested. After outlining the measures taken by the investigators, the newspaper stated that the four people who had been placed under house arrest “were allegedly” the de facto managers of the school. The newspaper went on to explain what the extortion had consisted of. It added that “unofficial accounts had been found at the home of the four people concerned” and that “the investigators had found that the pupils enrolled” in two classes “were in fact the husbands and cousins of the women who had been arrested”. The only passage reporting the investigators' statements concerned someone other than the applicant. 14. The other article – published on the following day together with a photograph of the four arrested women – was similar in content to the first one. 15. On 5 December 1998 the second daily, La Sicilia, published on the front page a photograph (identity format) of the four people who had been placed under house arrest and stated that they “had set up a bogus school”. The contents of the article were comparable to those of the articles published in the first daily. 16. The applicant's photograph, together with that of the three other women who had been arrested, was published four times on 5 and 6 December 1998. Each time it was an identity photograph that had been taken by the Revenue Police when the file was compiled, at the time of the applicant's arrest, and released by them to the press. 17. On 12 December 1998 the applicant challenged the order placing her under house arrest in the tribunale della libertà (a court with jurisdiction to examine preventive measures) of Catania. On 28 December 1998 the court ordered the applicant to be released on the ground that it was no longer necessary for the purposes of the investigation to keep her under house arrest. 18. On 1 March 1999 the public prosecutor's office requested the applicant to be committed for trial. The case was listed for hearing before the investigating judge on 26 May 1999. However, the applicant waived her right to that phase and asked to be tried by the court in accordance with a shortened form of procedure. The case was therefore set down for hearing before the Syracuse Court on 6 June 2000. 19. On 8 March 2002 the case ended with the special procedure for imposition of the penalty agreed between the applicant and the prosecution (Article 444 of the Code of Criminal Procedure – “the CCP” (applicazione della pena su richiesta delle parti)), namely, one year and ten months' imprisonment and a fine of 300 euros. 20. The parties did not provide the Court with any indication as to possible legislation governing the photographing of persons charged or arrested and placed under house arrest without being imprisoned and the release of such photographs to the press. Presidential Decree no. 431 of 29 April 1976 sets forth the implementing regulations in respect of Law no. 354 of 26 July 1975 on the administration of prisons. With regard to persons charged who have been arrested and imprisoned, paragraphs 1 and 2 of Regulation 26 of the implementing regulations provide as follows: “A personal file shall be compiled on anyone detained or confined as soon as he or she is imprisoned. The file shall follow the person concerned whenever he or she is transferred and shall be stored in the archives of the prison that releases him or her. The ministry shall be informed that the file is being stored. The references of this personal file shall include civil-status particulars, fingerprints, photographs and any other item necessary for the exact identification of the person.” It is clear from paragraph 5 of that regulation that the compilation of a personal file also concerns persons placed in pre-trial detention. 21. Law no. 121 of 1 April 1981 concerns the new rules relating to public safety. The relevant provisions of this Law read as follows: Section 6 – Coordination and direction of the police forces “With a view to implementing the guidelines issued by the Minister of the Interior on exercising the functions of coordination and unitary direction in respect of order and public safety, the Department of Public Safety shall carry out the following tasks: (a) classification, analysis and assessment of information and data that have to be provided by the police forces as well for the prevention of disorder and the protection of public safety and for the prevention and punishment of crime, and distribution to the operational services of the above-mentioned police forces; ... ” “The information and data referred to in section 6, paragraph (a), must relate to information taken either from documents which are stored in one way or another by public authorities or departments or from judgments or decisions by a judicial authority or from documents relating to the criminal investigation and available in accordance with Article 165 ter of the Code of Criminal Procedure or from police inquiries. In all cases it is forbidden to gather information and data on a citizen solely on the ground of his or her race, religion, political opinions or adherence to the principles of a trade union, cooperative, charitable or cultural movement or on account of any lawful activity carried on by him or her as a member of an organisation lawfully engaged in one of the above-mentioned spheres. ...”