Information Note on the Court’s case-law 56

September 2003

R.L. and M.-J.D. v. France (dec.) - 44568/98

Decision 18.9.2003 [Section III]

Article 8

Article 8-1

Respect for home

Alleged infringement of “home” due to entry of police officers into a restaurant: inadmissible

The applicants, who are restaurateurs in Paris, were summoned to attend the police station in connection with disturbances, following a series o f incidents involving neighbouring restaurateurs. The applicants, who were exhausted, did not attend. Subsequently three police officers in plain clothes visited their restaurant. They used force in disputed circumstances. Eventually, the first applicant w as taken to the police station. The applicants lodged a complaint, together with an application to join the proceedings as parties claiming civil damages, in respect of, inter alia , unlawful arrest and seizure and misuse of authority by police officers. Th e order stating that no further action would be taken delivered by the investigating judge was upheld on appeal. The applicants appealed on a point of law, without success.

Inadmissible under Article 8: The applicants stated before the investigating judge that the police officers had stopped at the door of the dining room of their restaurant and entered only after one of the officers had indicated that the applicant should join them and the latter had refused to do so. Those facts were also established by t he Court of Appeal. It was therefore at the invitation of the applicant, who did not wish to join them in the corridor, that the police officers entered the restaurant dining room to interview him. The Court concludes that, in those circumstances at any ev ent, the applicants cannot maintain that the police officers’ entry of the premises of their restaurant constituted a violation of their right to respect for their “home”: manifestly ill-founded.

© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This sum mary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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