Published on 9 October 2023

FOURTH SECTION

Application no. 19840/23 Cihat TASKIRAN against Denmark lodged on 10 May 2023 communicated on 19 September 2023

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the applicant’s claim for compensation for having been confined, on two occasions in January 2021, to a restraint bed in a psychiatric hospital. The applicant appealed against the confinement to the Psychiatric Patients’ Complaints Board, which on 24 March 2021 found the confinement unlawful. Relying on Article 3 of the Convention, the applicant then brought compensation proceedings before the courts under chapter 43a of the Administration of Justice Act (a provision granting a range of procedural guarantees to patients seeking judicial review of administrative deprivation of liberty). By a final judgment of 11 April 2023, the Supreme Court dismissed the applicant’s case as being outside the scope of chapter 43a of the Administration of Justice Act since there was no dispute about the lawfulness of the confinement at issue. The applicant therefore had to lodge his compensation claim in ordinary civil proceedings. The Supreme Court noted that the applicant was thus placed in a legally worse position in order to obtain compensation than he would have been had the Psychiatric Patients’ Complaints Board found against him.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Was the Supreme Court’s judgment of 11 April 2023 in breach of Articles 3, 5, 6, 8, or 13 of the Convention?

2. Has the applicant suffered discrimination contrary to Article 14 of the Convention, read in conjunction with Articles 3, 5, 6, 8 or 13 of the Convention, compared to other psychiatric patients whose complaints to the Psychiatric Patients’ Complaints Board were unsuccessful, and whose claims for compensation therefore fell within the scope of chapter 43a of the Administration of Justice Act?