The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) once again condemned Italy on Thursday July 7 for not having acted quickly enough to protect a woman from domestic violence committed by her ex-husband, despite several complaints.
"
The Italian authorities cannot be said to have acted with sufficient promptness and reasonable diligence
" to try the ex-husband accused of attacking and harassing the complainant, underlined the ECHR, according to which "
the result of this failure is that
“the latter”
enjoyed almost total impunity
.
“Several procedures have died out”
The applicant, an Italian lawyer born in 1962, had filed a complaint 12 times against her former spouse between 2007 and 2013. She had also filed a first complaint in 2004 for assault while the couple was still together.
According to the applicant, her former husband was then sent back to court three times but "
several proceedings were extinguished by the game of prescription because of their duration
", indicates the Court.
A fourth procedure for harassment committed between November 4 and 20, 2013 is still ongoing, notes the ECHR.
The latter considered that the facts had been judged too late, for some ten years later, and that Rome had carried out "
criminal proceedings with a judicial passivity incompatible
" with the Italian legal framework.
The seven judges of the judicial arm of the Council of Europe also found that there had been a violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) for the period from January 2007 to October 2008.
“Not prevented the commission of other domestic violence”
They considered that the local authorities had “
failed in their duty to carry out an immediate and proactive assessment of the risk of recidivism
” by not taking any action against the ex-husband between January 2007 and October 2008. The applicant had however “
warned on several occasions of the violence
” of the latter: she explained that the authorities had “
not prevented the commission of other domestic violence
”.
Read alsoCEDH: Italy condemned in a serious case of domestic violence
However, the Court ruled that there had been no violation of Article 3 between October 2008 and 2019, the Italian police having this time carried out an investigation, requested a protective measure and "
correctly
" taken into account “
the risks of recurrent violence
”.
Rome, already sentenced last June in a similar case, will have to pay 10,000 euros to the applicant for “ non-
pecuniary damage
”.