Information Note on the Court’s case-law 261

April 2022

Landi v. Italy - 10929/19

Judgment 7.4.2022 [Section I]

Article 2

Positive obligations

Authorities’ failure to take preventive action against recurrent domestic violence leading to the applicant’s attempted murder by her partner and their son’s actual murder: violation

Article 14

Discrimination

No systemic defect pointing to general passivity vis-à-vis victims of domestic violence, and no discriminatory attitude towards the applicant: inadmissible

Facts – Between 2015 and 2018 the applicant and her children were the victims of domestic violence inflicted by her partner, N.P. The violence had been reported to the national authorities. In 2018 N.P. killed their one-year-old child and tried to kill the applicant.

The applicant was awarded damages as a civil party in the criminal proceedings against N.P.

Before the Court she complained, in particular, of the failure of the respondent State to provide her and her family with protection and assistance.

Law – Article 2

Article 2 of the Convention applied to the applicant because she had suffered recurrent domestic violence and an attempted murder, and also on account of her son’s death.

Italian legislation provides appropriate protection against acts of violence perpetrated by individuals in any given case. A sufficiently wide range of legal and operational measures was available to enable the authorities to deal adequately and proportionately with the level of (lethal) risk in the present case.

(1) Had the authorities reacted immediately to the allegations of domestic violence?

Between 2015 and 2018 the carabinieri conducted an autonomous, proactive and exhaustive risk assessment each time N.P. attacked the applicant and their children, separately from any complaints lodged by the applicant. They took due account of the specific context of the instances of domestic violence, requesting both protective and custodial measures, in the light of the presumed existence of a real and imminent risk to the lives of the applicant and her children. However, the public prosecutors responsible for assessing those proposals failed to show the requisite exceptional diligence by reacting immediately to the applicant’s allegations of domestic violence. In 2015 the public prosecutor could have continued the prosecution despite the applicant’s withdrawal of her complaint, or could at least have conducted an in-depth investigation during the four months before it was finally discontinued. In 2017 the prosecutor carried out no investigative measures, and no other action was taken. Then in 2018, although the public prosecutor initiated an investigation into the offence of ill-treatment and an expert assessment of N.P.’s mental state was commissioned, the applicant was not interviewed and no protective measures were implemented.

(2) Quality of the risk assessment

Despite having been informed by the carabinieri of N.P.’s history of violence, when dealing with the applicant’s complaints the prosecutors failed to show that they had realised the specific nature and dynamics of the domestic violence in question, despite the existence of all the relevant circumstantial evidence, including the escalating violence inflicted on the applicant and her children, the threats, the regular recurrence of the attacks and N.P.’s mental illness. Even N.P.’s psychiatrist had underestimated the situation, considering the attack on the applicant in 2018 as a domestic “argument”. The authorities failed to introduce any protective measures despite the carabinieri ’s requests. The risks of recurrent violence were never properly assessed or taken into account.

Apart from the proposals put forward by the carabinieri to the public prosecutors, the authorities failed in their duty to conduct an immediate and proactive assessment of the risk of renewed violence against the applicant and her children and to adopt operational and preventive measures to curtail that risk, protect the applicant and her children and censure N.P.’s conduct. The prosecutors, in particular, remained passive in the face of the serious risk of violent abuse of the applicant, and their inaction had enabled N.P. to continue to threaten, harass and attack her unhindered and with impunity.

(3) Did the authorities know, or should they have known, that there was a real and imminent risk to the applicant’s son’s life?

In the light of the foregoing considerations, the national authorities knew, or ought to have known, of the real and imminent risk to the applicant’s and her children’s lives from the violence inflicted by N.P., and they should have assessed the risk of the reiteration of such offences and taken appropriate and sufficient measures to protect the applicant and her children. Nevertheless, they failed to honour that obligation, having reacted neither immediately, as required in cases of domestic violence, nor at any other time.

(4) Did the authorities take appropriate preventive action in the specific circumstances of the case?

Drawing on the information which had been known to the authorities at the material time to the effect that there was a real and imminent risk of further violence being committed against the applicant and her children on account of the alleged escalation in the domestic violence reported by the applicant, and having regard to N.P.’s mental health issues, the authorities had not shown the requisite diligence. They had failed to conduct a lethality risk assessment specifically targeting the context in which the domestic violence was being committed and, in particular, the situation of the applicant and her children, which would have provided the basis for implementing practical preventive measures to protect them from the risk of violence. In blatant disregard of the wide range of protective measures directly available to them, the authorities, which could have implemented protective measures by alerting the social and psychological services and placing the applicant and her children in a women’s refuge, had shown scant diligence in preventing the violence against the applicant and her children, which had led to the attempted murder of the applicant and the actual murder of her son. As also acknowledged by GREVIO when verifying the conformity of the national legal framework with Article 55.1 of the Istanbul Convention, the aforementioned measures could and should have been adopted by the authorities in accordance with Italian legislation, irrespective of whether any complaints had been lodged or the victim’s perception of the risk had changed.

Under those circumstances, the authorities could not be deemed to have shown the requisite diligence. Therefore they failed to honour their positive obligation under Article 2 to protect the applicant’s and her son’s lives.

Conclusion : violation (unanimous).

Article 14 read in conjunction with Article 2:

The relevant principles, which were set out for the first time in Opuz v. Turkey , were fleshed out in the judgment in the case of Volodina v. Russia .

The applicant was the victim of violent acts by N.P. on several occasions, and the authorities had cognisance of those acts. Yet the public prosecutors had investigated the impugned acts neither during the four months after the applicant had lodged her first complaint not after the attack in 2018, and no protective measures had been adopted despite the requests submitted by the carabinieri . That inertia was attributable to the prosecutors responsible for investigations.

Since 2017 and the adoption of the Talpis v. Italy judgment, the State has taken action to implement the Istanbul Convention, thus demonstrating a genuine political will to prevent and combat violence against women.

The applicant did not succeed in gathering any prima facie evidence of widespread inertia in the justice system impeding the provision of effective protection to female victims of domestic violence, or of the discriminatory nature of the measures or practices implemented by the authorities in her case. She provided no statistics or observations from non-governmental organisations.

Nor did the applicant allege that the police officers had attempted to deter her from prosecuting N.P. or from testifying against him, or that they had tried in any way to impede her complaints, which had sought protection against the alleged violence. On the contrary, they submitted several reports to the public prosecutors on the applicant’s situation, even after she had withdrawn her final complaint, and requested the implementation of protective measures.

Clearly, the prosecutors had failed to honour their obligation to take preventive action capable of averting the tragic outcome, or at least of mitigating the damage. However, in the light of the proactive attitude adopted by the carabinieri , the inaction of the investigating authorities in the instant case could not be considered as a systemic defect.

There was therefore nothing to prove that the prosecutors in the present case had acted in a discriminatory manner or with discriminatory intent vis-à-vis the applicant. A breach of Article 14 arose only where there were widespread shortcomings deriving from a clear and systemic failure of the national authorities to appreciate the seriousness, the extent and the discriminatory effect on women of the problem of domestic violence.

Since the shortcomings criticised in the present case had originated in the inertia of the authorities, and even though they had been culpable and contrary to Article 2, they could not be deemed per se to reveal any discriminatory attitude on the authorities’ part.

Conclusion : inadmissible (manifestly ill-founded).

Article 41: EUR 32,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.

(See also Opuz v. Turkey , 33401/02, 9 June 2009, Legal summary ; A. v. Croatia , 55164/08, 14 October 2010, Legal summary ; Eremia v. the Republic of Moldova , 3564/11, 28 May 2013, Legal summary ; Talpis v. Italy , 41237/14, 2 March 2017, Legal summary ; Bălşan v. Romania , 49645/09, 23 May 2017, Legal summary ; Volodina v. Russia , 41261/17, 9 July 2019, Legal summary )

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

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