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Pressemitteilung
 Der Kanzler des Europäischen Gerichtshofs für Menschenrechte 01/06/06 Gerichtshof –Kammerurteil im Fall Tais gegen Frankreich [en] EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS 318
Press release issued by the Registrar CHAMBER JUDGMENT The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment1 in the case of Tais v. France (application no. 39922/03). The Court held: · by five votes to two that there had been a violation of Article 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights regarding the death of the applicants’ son;
Under Article 41 (just satisfaction), the Court, by five votes to two, awarded the applicants 50,000 euros (EUR) jointly for non-pecuniary damage and EUR 20,000 for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in French.) 1. Principal facts Suzette Taïs and her husband Mohammed Taïs are French nationals, aged 68, living in Saint-Pierre Du Mont (France). On the morning of 7 April 1993 their son, Pascal Taïs, aged 33, was found dead in a cell at Arcachon police station where he had been placed overnight to sober up. The day before, on 6 April 1993, Pascal Taïs and his girlfriend had been involved in a minor road accident at about 7.30 p.m. They were subsequently stopped and questioned during a fight which broke out in Arcachon at around 11.45 p.m., and were taken to hospital around midnight for a medical examination. Pascal Taïs refused to be examined and, when he became violent, the police officers struck him with batons on the hands, legs and chest; they also slapped him in an attempt to calm him down. ./.. The doctor who attended him discharged him from hospital, and at about 12.15 a.m. Mr Taïs, who was showing signs of inebriation, was placed in an overnight cell to sober up while his girlfriend was taken into police custody. Pascal Taïs shouted and screamed for part of the night. At around 7.30 a.m. he was found dead in his cell, lying in a pool of his blood and excrement. According to the custody record made out that night, he had been checked every fifteen minutes until 5 a.m. and every half hour until 7 a.m. The abbreviation “RAS” (rien à signaler, meaning “nothing to report”) appears 23 times next to the times of the checks. The same day the Bordeaux public prosecutor’s office instructed the National Police Inspectorate to investigate the causes of the death of Pascal Taïs. An autopsy was performed. The autopsy report found that Mr Taïs had died of a haemorrhage following a rupture to the spleen. It recorded that he had a wound to the back of the head and skin erosions and multiple bruises, mainly to the face, neck, chest and limbs. It further specified that Pascal Taïs, who had been suffering from Aids, was weakened by a pathological condition. On 19 April 1993 the applicants lodged a complaint against persons unknown for manslaughter and failing to assist a person in danger, and lodged an application to join the proceedings as civil parties. An investigation was opened in connection with which a number of expert reports were prepared at the request of the investigating judge, including a post-mortem psychologist’s report. At the applicants’ request, a second expert opinion was obtained. However, the judge refused their request for a reconstruction of events. On 28 June 1996 the investigating judge, finding that the custody officers at the police station could not be implicated in the events, found that there was no case to answer. He considered that the trauma that had caused the death, the cause of which remained unknown, had probably occurred while Mr Taïs was sobering up, and that it had not been possible to ascertain from the inquiries carried out what exactly had happened on the morning of his death. On an appeal by the applicants, the Indictments Division of the Bordeaux Court of Appeal upheld the finding of no case to answer on 19 June 2003. In its opinion, “the most likely explanation, although unproven, was that the fatal injury had been sustained as a result of a fall though it was not possible to say whether it had been voluntary or involuntary”. 2. Procedure and composition of the Court The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 18 December 2003. It was declared partly admissible following a public hearing on 6 October 2005 at the Human Rights Building in Strasbourg. Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows: Christos Rozakis (Greek), President, 3. Summary of the judgment2 Complaints Relying on Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention, the applicants contended that their son had died as a result of being assaulted by the police officers; that he had not been supervised or treated while in custody; and that the investigation into the circumstances of his death had not been effective. Decision of the Court Article 2 The Court reiterated that persons in custody were in a vulnerable position and the authorities were under a duty to account for the treatment of them. Consequently, where an individual was taken into police custody in good health but later died, it was incumbent on the State to provide a plausible explanation of the events leading to his death. The death of Pascal Taïs The allegation that the police assaulted Pascal Taïs According to the French Government, Pascal Taïs died from a heavy fall onto a corner of the bench in the cell where he had been sobering up. In examining the explanation advanced by the Government, the Court noted firstly that on the evening of his arrest Pascal Taïs’s physical and mental state had given cause for concern: he had not been in “good health”, but had been weak and extremely vulnerable on account of his illness, his state of intoxication and his fraught frame of mind. That could be an aggravating factor which further strengthened the obligation to account for the treatment of him while he was in custody. Pascal Taïs was first taken to hospital at about 11 p.m. The blows administered in order to calm him down had only exacerbated what had already been an extremely fragile condition, though it was not known to what degree. However, the medical certificate drawn up at the time contained commonplace clinical observations and did not refer to the many recent bruises, the injury to the scalp or the two broken ribs recorded at the time of the autopsy. The discrepancy between the findings made at the hospital and those appearing in the autopsy report also emerged from the testimony of the duty doctor. Pascal Taïs was then taken to the police station between 11.30 p.m. and 12.15 a.m. It was not known what had happened during that period. However, while the second expert opinion stated that “it is not known what happened while [Mr Taïs] was being taken to the police station”, it was stated in the order discharging the case that he had banged his head against the plexiglass window at the back of the van all the way to the police station. Finally, at about 12.15 a.m. Pascal Taïs was put in a cell to sober up where he was found dead at 7.30 a.m. The Court noted that the applicants’ son was found lying on his back and not on his front, as had first been stated, which strengthened the theory that he had fallen. In the Court’s opinion, the custody record showing the abbreviation “RAS” was problematical given the description of Pascal Taïs having shouted all night long, as stated in one of the expert reports and again in the judgment of the Indictment Division. Similarly, the order discharging the case specified that mention was made in the custody record that the duty police officer had spoken to Pascal Taïs at 7 a.m., whereas nothing of the sort appeared in the record. In the circumstances, the Court considered that the custody record could not be used in support of the Government’s submissions because its contents were wholly inconsistent with the alleged “unruly behaviour” of the applicants’ son. It also noted that if Pascal Taïs’s death had been caused by a fall, which must by definition have been a heavy one to result in broken ribs and a ruptured spleen, there had been no explanation as to why the police officers had not heard or noticed anything at the relevant time given that the shouts must have changed in tone on account of the pain felt. Lastly, the Court noted that the investigating judge had refused to grant the applicants’ request for a reconstruction of events because the conditions in which they had occurred were unknown. In the absence of a plausible explanation for the discrepancy, or even contradiction, between the medical report drawn up when discharging the applicant from hospital and the autopsy report, and regarding the cause of the injuries found on Pascal Taïs’s body, and given that the injuries could in any event only have occurred during his detention, the Court held that France bore responsibility for the death of the applicants’ son. The allegation of lack of care and supervision of Pascal Taïs The Court noted that Pascal Taïs’s condition had gone beyond mere drunkenness, both physically and psychologically, with all the symptoms showing him to be extremely fragile. While in detention he had not been monitored, medically or otherwise, in such a way as to protect his life. The Court noted in that connection gross shortcomings and negligence on the part of the French authorities. It would appear that, between 1 a.m. and 7.30 a.m., no police officer went into the cell where Pascal Taïs was sobering up despite his having shouted all night and right up until a few moments before his death. His cries had been put down to his fraught frame of mind and his drunken state rather than cries in agony or calls for help. The Court found it paradoxical to refer to proper checks every fifteen minutes, with nothing to report, when the police officers did not go into the cell. The Court noted in addition that the cleaning ladies, who had both arrived at 6 a.m. had testified as to their surprise at the terrible smell in the building and the insults emanating from the cell. It could be seen from the domestic decisions that there had been a bad smell in the police station from 4 a.m. but that no one had seen fit to provide Pascal Taïs with any care. Lastly, measures could have been taken to save the applicants’ son. According to the second expert, the injuries might not have been fatal if they had been diagnosed in time in different circumstances. The Court was of the opinion that, given Pascal Taïs’s state of health on his arrival at the police station, and the long hours which followed, the police officers should at least have called a doctor to check on developments in his state of health. In conclusion, the Court found that France had not provided a plausible explanation as to the cause of the injuries that resulted in Pascal Taïs’s death and accordingly considered that its responsibility was engaged regarding the death. The Court further considered that the inertia of the police officers in the face of Pascal Taïs’s physical and mental distress and the lack of effective police and medical supervision had constituted a violation of France’s obligation to protect the lives of persons in custody. Consequently, the Court held that here had been a violation of Article 2 on account of Pascal Taïs’s death. The investigation into Pascal Taïs’s death The Court reiterated that a prompt response by the authorities when investigating the death of a person in detention could generally be regarded as essential in maintaining public confidence in their adherence to the rule of law and in preventing any appearance of collusion in or tolerance of unlawful acts. It found in the present case that, at the end of proceedings lasting ten years, the long investigation had failed to establish the actual cause of Pascal Taïs’s death. The second expert opinion had been given nearly three years after the events and the investigating judge had not himself interviewed the police officers at the beginning of the investigation, but only four years after the events. Having regard to the circumstances of the case, the Court considered that the French authorities had not acted with sufficient promptness or reasonable expedition. Furthermore, no detailed evidence had been taken from Pascal Taïs’s girlfriend despite the fact that she had been present in the police station on the night of the incident. Although difficulties had been encountered in obtaining her testimony since she had twice failed to respond to a summons issued by the judge, there was nothing in the case file to suggest that special steps had been taken to obtain her evidence or organise a face-to-face meeting with the police officers. It was also regrettable that the investigating judge had refused to allow a reconstruction of the events because that might have established with greater certainty how the injury to the spleen which caused Pascal Taïs’s death had occurred, once it became clear that the injuries had been sustained during his detention. Lastly, the Court doubted the usefulness of the post-mortem psychological inquiry in establishing the truth. That expert report, which contained a negative assessment of Pascal Taïs, had indirectly targeted the applicants and had been extremely upsetting for them. Its contents had provided the judicial authorities with a means of minimising or excluding the police officers’ responsibility for their son’s death. It propounded the theory that he had committed suicide and had probably provided a clue to interpretation during the investigation, assuming disproportionate importance in comparison with the other measures taken to determine the cause of the death and identify any parties responsible. In conclusion, the Court considered that the French authorities had not conducted an effective – particularly a quick – investigation into the circumstances surrounding Pascal Taïs’s death. Consequently, the Court held that there had been a violation of Article 2 on account of the investigation into the death of the applicants’ son. Article 3 of the Convention Having taken into account the applicants’ allegations under Article 2, the Court took the view that it was not necessary to consider them separately under Article 3. Judge Kovler expressed a concurring opinion, and Judges Costa and Lorenzen a joint partly concurring and partly dissenting opinion. These opinions are attached to the judgment. *** The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site (http://www.echr.coe.int). Press contacts
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