A woman from Dewsbury who claimed she was raped by a hotel bartender while on holiday at the Greek resort of Parga in 2019 has won a complaint against the Greek government at the European Court of Human Rights.
However, the unnamed claimant was awarded no compensation or legal costs because her claim was lodged too late.
The woman, who was 18 at the time, argued that the authorities had breached their duty to protect her as a victim of gender-based violence. The bartender claimed she had given her consent.
Judges in Strasbourg found that Greece had breached article 3 of the human rights convention because there had been no effective investigation of her claim that she had been subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment, which includes rape. There had also been no effective investigation of her claim under article 8 of the convention, which requires respect for a person’s private and family life.
The Greek authorities should have been mindful of the alleged victim’s rights and avoided secondary victimisation, the court said:
The intimate nature of the subject matter, the applicant’s young age and the fact that she claimed to have been raped while on holiday in a foreign country were points of particular sensitivity which called for a correspondingly sensitive approach on the part of the authorities.
Following the submission of the applicant’s complaint, the investigating authorities did not take measures to prevent her further traumatisation and did not take sufficient account of her needs. They did not take any measures to inform her of her rights as a victim, such as the right to legal assistance or counselling and psychological support, the right to receive information and the right to object to the interpretation.
Furthermore, the investigating authorities did not take adequate measures to mitigate what was clearly a distressing experience for the applicant, such as the interview, the direct confrontation with the accused, the identification procedure and the medical examination, which should have been subject to more careful assessment…
In addition, neither the prosecution nor the court analysed the circumstances of the case from the perspective of gender-based violence. They failed to explore the available possibilities for establishing all the surrounding circumstances… and to take account of the particular psychological factors involved in rape cases such as the present one and to make a context-sensitive assessment of the credibility of the various statements. There was no serious attempt to clarify the discrepancies or to assess the applicant’s state of mind and personal circumstances…
In view of the above, the court, without expressing an opinion on the guilt of the accused, finds that the failure of the investigative and judicial authorities to adequately respond to the allegations of rape shows that they did not submit the case to the careful scrutiny required for them to properly discharge their positive obligations under the convention…
The court thus concludes that the failure of the investigative and judicial authorities to adequately respond to the allegations of rape in the present case amount to a violation of the positive obligations of the state under articles 3 and 8 of the convention.
The court said it had written to the claimant in November 2022 inviting her to make a claim for compensation and legal costs by January 2023. When she failed to do so, the court gave her a further six weeks expiring at the end of March 2023. She made no financial claim until May 2023 and gave no reasons for the delay
As the claims for what the court calls “just satisfaction” were not made in time, they were dismissed. She had been represented by a lawyer practising in London.
It is instructive that this and the judgment on Halal/Kosher meat, of which many ECHR critics would approve no doubt, fails to make the headlines!
Slightly uncomfortable with the balance struck in the latter judgment - especially since once suspects that animal welfare was not the only motivating concern of Belgian legislators - but understand the reasoning.
The Court doing its job? We hear much of the need to establish the truth. Whose truth? And in this particular case who is ever likely to know ( save for- perhaps- the two parties). As I have so often thought -and said- to friends and acquaintances : is a witness in her/his cause lying if honestly reciting her/his truth, however mistaken or partial that might be? This in respect of such a serious allegation may have absolutely no bearing but the rule of law and due process are never to be viewed as optional extras.