Right to an Effective Investigation of Ill-Treatment when in Police Custody: Beyond Implementation of the Case Law of the European Court of Human Rights
Abstract
Detention of persons in police custody poses serious challenges to human rights. From the perspective of detainees, police custody is a significant impediment to one's personal liberty.
In a very short time, they are isolated from the outside world and deprived of liberty based often on a mere allegation of committing an offence. They frequently experience shock, trauma, and weakness.
From the perspective of the state, detention imposes a particular legal and ethical burden on the police officers involved. There can be no greater power vested in an individual than the power to take away the liberty of another.
Hand in hand with this power comes great responsibility. Thus, the way the police officers treat people in custody reflects on how the police force is viewed both by those detained and by the wider public.
The cases of the European Court of Human Rights ("ECtHR") analysed in this article, namely Eremiášová and Pechová v. the Czech Republic and Kummer v. the Czech Republic, reflect upon the Czech Republic's deficiencies in ensuring an effective, adequate, and independent investigation of police ill-treatment. As the ability of the police force to regulate and control itself and not to provide impunity to its officers is one of the fundamental principles of the rule of law, this topic deserves thorough consideration.
Although it has been nearly five years since the cases were rendered, their significance cannot be overstated. Not only does it not happen very often for the Czech Republic to be found violating one of the core rights, namely the right to life, the most frequent violation of the European Convention on Human Rights (the Convention) being undue delays in judicial proceedings, the cases have also brought changes to the police structure and a major shift in the protection of rights of victims in criminal proceedings.
Have these changes been sufficient to remedy the deficiencies found by the ECtHR? And are the changes in the protection of rights of victims in criminal proceedings adopted by the Czech Constitutional Court seen to be positive? These are the questions that this article seeks to answer.