AFFAIRE VUČKOVIĆ c. CROATIE

• Judgment Date: 12 December 2023
• ECLI: ECLI:CE:ECHR:2023:1212JUD001579820
• Counsel: BOJIĆ I
• Date: 12 December 2023
• Application Number: 15798/20
• Court: Second Section (European Court of Human Rights)
• Respondent State: Croacia
• Applied Rules: 3;3+8;8;41

SECOND SECTION

CASE OF VUČKOVIĆ v. CROATIA

(Application no. 15798/20)

JUDGMENT

Arts 3 and 8 • Positive obligations • Commutation of a ten-month prison sentence imposed on applicant’s co-worker to community service, after he had been convicted of sexual violence against her • Domestic court’s commutation of sentence without careful scrutiny of all relevant considerations • Failure to give adequate reasons or consider interests of the victim • Context of specific social danger of violence against women and the need to combat it with efficient and deterrent actions • State’s failure to sufficiently discharge procedural obligation to ensure sexual violence applicant had suffered was dealt with appropriately

Prepared by the Registry. Does not bind the Court.

STRASBOURG

12 December 2023

This judgment will become final in the circumstances set out in Article 44 § 2 of the Convention. It may be subject to editorial revision.

In the case of Vučković v. Croatia,

The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting as a Chamber composed of:

Arnfinn Bårdsen, President,
Jovan Ilievski,
Egidijus Kūris,
Pauliine Koskelo,
Frédéric Krenc,
Diana Sârcu,
Davor Derenčinović, judges,
and Dorothee von Arnim, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to:

the application (no. 15798/20) against the Republic of Croatia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by a Croatian national, Ms Maja Vučković (“the applicant”), on 19 March 2020;

the decision to give notice to the Croatian Government (“the Government”);

the parties’ observations;

Having deliberated in private on 14 November 2023,

Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:

INTRODUCTION

1. The case concerns the applicant’s complaints under Articles 3 and 8 of the Convention that commuting a ten-month prison sentence imposed on her co-worker to community service, after he had been convicted of sexual violence against her, had resulted in a disproportionately lenient punishment, given the seriousness of the offences he had committed.

THE FACTS

2. The applicant was born in 1978 and lives in Rijeka. She was represented by Ms I. Bojić, a lawyer practising in Zagreb.

3. The Government were represented by their Agent, Ms Š. Stažnik.

4. The facts of the case may be summarised as follows.

5. On 18 June 2015 the applicant filed a criminal complaint against her work colleague M.P., accusing him of sexual violence inflicted during shifts when they had worked together as an ambulance nurse and ambulance driver, respectively. She submitted that on one occasion during a night shift, M.P. had locked her in a room, taken off his clothes and tried to undress her, after which he had grabbed her by the neck and pushed her head towards his erect penis, telling her to put it in her mouth. He had stopped only after the applicant had shouted that she would faint. On another occasion M.P. had repeatedly touched the applicant on her arms, thighs and breasts while they had been in the ambulance vehicle, before he had unzipped his trousers and tried to put her hand inside them. His actions had been accompanied by inappropriate language and threats that she would be fired if she ever told anyone about what had happened.

6. Following the applicant’s complaint, on the following day the police questioned M.P. and several witnesses. M.P. stated that he had only joked with the applicant by telling her on a number of occasions to grab his sexual organ. He also admitted that he was occasionally touching her thighs and her bottom “just for fun”, and stated that he believed that the applicant had been attracted to him because she had said so to another colleague.

7. On 26 June 2015, as a consequence of harassment of the applicant, M.P. was transferred to another post, to work as an ambulance driver in a different town. It would appear that at around the same time some of the other male ambulance drivers who worked with the applicant signed a petition not to be assigned the same shifts as her.

8. On 30 June 2015 the police forwarded a special report to the competent State Attorney’s Office stating that there was a reasonable suspicion that throughout April, May and June 2015 M.P. had sexually abused the applicant on several occasions, thereby committing the criminal offence of performing lewd acts. Criminal proceedings ensued.

9. Following a complaint by the applicant submitted to the local gender equality office, on 7 July 2015 the Ombudsperson for Gender Equality wrote to the applicant’s employer requesting further information on the actions taken to what she considered to have been attempted rape of the applicant by M.P. A copy of the letter was also sent to the Rijeka County State Attorney’s Office for investigation. The said office ultimately established that the facts of the case did not reveal the commission of attempted rape, but another criminal offence against sexual freedom and morals.

10. On 8 May 2018 the Rijeka Municipal Court (Općinski sud u Rijeci) found M.P. guilty of two counts of committing lewd acts under...