Z v United Kingdom

Ratio Decidendi

Fapte

Four children suffered years of severe neglect and emotional and physical abuse by their parents. Social services were aware of the situation but failed to take effective action to protect the children for over four years. The case originated from X v Bedfordshire CC in the House of Lords.

Rezumatul hotărârii

The European Court of Human Rights held unanimously that the United Kingdom had violated Article 3: the local authority had been aware for more than four years of the serious neglect and ill-treatment the four children were suffering at home but failed to take effective steps to protect them, and that treatment reached the threshold of inhuman and degrading treatment. The state's positive obligation under Article 3 requires it to take reasonable measures to protect individuals — especially children and other vulnerable people — from ill-treatment of which it knew or ought to have known. The Court also found a violation of Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) because the children had had no means of obtaining a determination of their claim that the authority had failed to protect them, or of obtaining compensation. Importantly, the Court revisited its Osman v UK reasoning on Article 6, accepting that the striking-out of the negligence claim in X v Bedfordshire CC did not violate Article 6(1) because it reflected the substantive limits of the domestic law of negligence rather than a procedural immunity; the appropriate route was Article 13.

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