M.H. and others v Slovakia (2022)
30 October 2018
Facts
On 19 June 2013, 63 police officers entered a Romani neighbourhood in Moldava nad Bodvou (Slovakia) to carry out an investigation into “increased criminal activity”. They carried out a brutally violent raid, injuring over 30 Romani people. The injured included children and people with disabilities.
The Case
The ERRC supported people who were injured (who are now the applicants in the European Court case) to make complaints against the police to the prosecutor’s office. But the prosecutor’s office did not properly investigate what happened. Instead, some of the Romani people who were beaten by police were themselves accused of lying about what happened and face criminal charges.
We supported the applicants to turn to Slovakia’s Constitutional Court. But the Constitutional Court ruled against them.
So we are now representing the applicants before the European Court of Human Rights. The core of the complaint is that the police and prosecutors are contaminated with antigypsyism. The police violence was racially discriminatory; and the failure to investigate it properly (and the decision to prosecute those who stood up for their rights) also amounted to race discrimination by prosecutors.
The Court accepted our request to anonymise the case and to restrict access to the case file, meaning that the applicants’ identities are not public. This is why the case is called “M.H. and others” and why we are not putting up more details on this page about the case.
The Court’s statement of facts can be found here.
How the Case Was Resolved
The case was resolved when the Government of Slovakia and the applicants agreed to a friendly settlement, which involved a payment of €110,000 in non-pecuniary damages jointly to the Romani applicants. The decision setting this out can be found here.
ERRC’s press release on the friendly settlement of the case can be found here.
A blog by our colleague Marek Balaz about the importance of securing justice in this case can be found here.
