Published on 30 January 2023

SECOND SECTION

Application no. 25866/21 Sonja PICIG and Others against Croatia lodged on 12 May 2021 communicated on 10 January 2023

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The applicants’ family member was shot and killed in 1999 by T.B., a Croatian army soldier who was off duty. The killing was perpetrated with a rifle which T.B. had picked up at a battlefield during his participation in the war in Croatia, which ended in 1995.

The applicants complain, in particular, that the State failed to comply with its positive obligation under Article 2 of the Convention as it failed to take any measures in order to prevent unlawful possession of firearms which its soldiers had acquired during the war.

In the civil proceedings for damages against the State, the domestic courts held that, even assuming that Croatian army soldiers had been required to surrender to their military units any weapon which they had acquired during the war, the causal link between the failure of the State to supervise compliance with that requirement and the killing of the applicants’ relative in 1999 was too remote to engage the State’s liability for his killing.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

Did the killing of the applicants’ relative engage the responsibility of the State under Article 2 of the Convention? If so, was there a breach of the said provision (see, mutatis mutandis , Kotilainen and Others v. Finland , no. 62439/12, §§ 66-68 and 84-90, 17 September 2020; Gerasimenko and Others v. Russia , nos. 5821/10 and 65523/12, §§ 91 et seq. , 1 December 2016; Sašo Gorgiev v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia , no. 49382/06, §§ 39-55, ECHR 2012 (extracts); and Gorovenky and Bugara v. Ukraine , nos. 36146/05 and 42418/05, §§ 31-40, 12 January 2012)?

The Government are requested to submit information whether and which measures were taken by the domestic authorities during and after the war with the purpose of preventing unlawful possession of firearms and other weapons by its soldiers, including the weapons picked up at a battlefield with or without their superiors’ knowledge.

APPENDIX

List of applicants:

Application no. 25866/21

No.

Applicant’s Name

Year of birth

Nationality

Place of residence

1.Sonja PICIG

1967Croatian

Virovitica

2.Sanja JOVETIĆ

1999Croatian

Virovitica

3.Liljana Å UPRNA

1989Croatian

Virovitica