Published on 5 February 2024

FIFTH SECTION

Application no. 32761/17 Nataliya Sergiyivna STADNYK against Ukraine lodged on 26 April 2017 communicated on 16 January 2024

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the applicant’s son’s alleged ill-treatment in custody which had led to his death and the absence of an effective investigation into those events. The applicant raised Articles 2, 3 and 13 of the Convention.

On 25 July 2010, following a call to the police station, three policemen discovered the applicant’s son in the basement of a house, considerably intoxicated and holding a file. The neighbours, who had locked him up in the basement and called the police, reported that the applicant’s son had attempted to saw off the lock and steal some property items. The applicant’s son was taken to the police station, where a protocol of an administrative offense for police disobedience was drawn up. He was kept in the police station until the next morning and then transferred to another police station for further questioning. On the way, the applicant’s son fell to the ground and was taken to a hospital where he died the same day. Post-mortem and subsequent forensic examinations revealed a serious craniocerebral injury, allegedly sustained from the fall, and numerous injuries on his body, likely incurred on 25 July 2010. On 27 July 2010, the applicant lodged a complaint about her son’s ill-treatment in custody. On 4 July 2013, in the proceedings against the police officer B. for forgery of administrative case materials in the applicant’s son’s case, the court ordered a criminal investigation into the applicant’s son’s death. After several decisions to terminate the proceedings, which were subsequently quashed, on 31 October 2016, the Lviv Regional Prosecutors Office terminated the proceedings due to a lack of evidence of a crime. It was concluded that the applicant’s son’s death was caused by a cranio-cerebral trauma with a skull vault fracture that could have occurred when he fell. The applicant’s son’s numerous other injuries could have been caused by his fall in the basement and an alleged epilepsy seizure after the fall.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Was the applicant’s son’s right to life, ensured by Article 2 of the Convention, violated in the present case? Is the State responsible for the death of the applicant’s son?

2. Having regard to the procedural protection of the right to life (see paragraph 104 of Salman v. Turkey [GC], no. 21986/93, ECHR 2000-VII), was the investigation in the present case by the domestic authorities in breach of Article 2 of the Convention?

3. Was the applicant’s son subjected to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment in breach of Article 3 of the Convention?

4. Having regard to the procedural protection from torture, inhuman and degrading treatment (see paragraph 131 of Labita v. Italy [GC], no. 26772/95, ECHR 2000-IV), was the investigation in the present case by the domestic authorities in breach of Article 3 of the Convention?