M.B. and others v Slovakia (third-party intervention, pending)
25 February 2019
Facts
The case was brought by three Romani people (“the applicants”). The applicants were minors when, on 21 March 2009, they were arrested. They say they were mistreated by police officers in the car ride on the way to the police station. They turned to the European Court of Human Rights because they claim the investigation into what happened was inadequate, in part because investigators did not look into whether what happened to them was racially discriminatory. There is not much more information available right now, because the European Court has anonymised the case. There should be more information available when the Court decides the case.
The ERRC’s Third-Party Intervention
We were not involved in the case before it came to the European Court of Human Rights. Once we learned about the case, we asked the European Court if we could intervene as a third party. The Court said yes. This meant that we could send in a 10-page submission to provide the Court with information to help the Court reach the right outcome.
We urged the Court to use the word “antigypsyism” to describe to the specific, persistent forms of discrimination that Roma face. We noted that the term was now widely used by Council of Europe and EU bodies, giving specific examples. We then set out evidence that police services in Slovakia are contaminated by institutional antigypsyism. We relied on data from the EU Fundamental Rights Agency and observations from various United Nations human rights treaty bodies, from the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance, and the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights. We noted that the situation of institutional antigypsyism in policing in Slovakia was so problematic that in 2017, the ERRC, acting as the plaintiff, filed an actio popularis (public interest) claim against the Slovak Ministry of Interior, challenging harassment of Roma by police as a form of race discrimination. We then set out details about several disturbing incidents where police had engaged in violent raids in Romani neighbourhoods in Slovakia between 2009 and 2017. Many of these actions were carried out under so-called “Action Code 100”, a specific code for police actions. The Ombudsperson of the Slovak Republic had investigated the use of Action Code 100 and found that these raids were disproportionately carried out in Romani neighbourhoods. We also cited several statements by officials at the highest level of the State indicating that heavier policing was needed in Romani neighbourhoods. We also cited plans for heavier policing in “problematic areas”, an expression everyone would understand as referring to Romani neighbourhoods. We said that this was evidence of institutional antigypsyism in policing in Slovakia. We told the Court that where there is evidence of institutional antigypsyism, the Court should not apply a “beyond reasonable doubt” standard to find discrimination. Instead, applying the notions of “harassment” as a form of discrimination and the shift of the burden of proof, the Court should require the Respondent Government to show that what looks like a case of racially motivated police violence did not amount to discrimination. Lastly, we explained why the Police Inspectorate in Slovakia did not provide an independent or effective mechanism for dealing with complaints of racially-motivated or other police misconduct.
The European Court’s statement of the facts of the case can be found here.
Our third-party intervention can be found here.
