Published on 19 December 2022

FOURTH SECTION

Application no. 46754/17 Mesrop KHACHATRYAN against Armenia lodged on 19 June 2017 communicated on 30 November 2022

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

On 9 December 2014, during a physics class, teacher H.M. pushed a coat stand at the applicant, M. Khachatryan, a thirteen-year-old pupil at the material time, and one of the hooks hit him in the eye. As a result, the applicant completely lost the sight in his left eye. The trial court convicted H.M. of negligently inflicting grievous bodily harm to the applicant’s health – it found that the applicant, worried that the teacher might punish him for approaching the coat stand without her permission, had pushed it at H.M. who had pushed it back at the applicant. It fined H.M. the amount of 200,000 Armenian drams and left without examination the applicant’s father’s civil claim for pecuniary damages. The appeal court upheld this judgment in so far as H.M.’s conviction was concerned but remitted it to the lower court in respect of the civil claim. On 19 December 2016 the Court of Cassation dismissed the applicant’s appeal on points of law.

At the date of the latest information available to the Court (June 2017), the proceedings concerning the applicant’s father’s civil claim were still pending before the trial court.

The applicant contests the findings of the domestic authorities that the State school teacher had hit him negligently and complains, under Article 3 of the Convention, that he became disabled as a result of her unlawful actions and that the authorities’ response to his ill-treatment was not adequate given, inter alia , the alleged ineffectiveness of investigation and the lenient penalty imposed on the offender.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Has the applicant been subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment, in breach of Article 3 of the Convention?

2. Having regard to the procedural protection from inhuman or degrading treatment ( Bouyid v. Belgium [GC], no. 23380/09, §§ 114-23, ECHR 2015; Myumyun v. Bulgaria , no. 67258/13, §§ 66-68, 3 November 2015) was the investigation in the present case by the domestic authorities in breach of Article 3 of the Convention?