ECtHR Cases July–September 2025

Levon v. Lithuania (no. 27121/23)

The applicant, Anton Levon, is a Lithuanian national who was born in 1973 and lives in Vilnius. On the morning of December 25, 2020, Mr Levon’s father, who had a history of heart disease, began to feel unwell. He was taken to the hospital that evening and died there the following day. The cause of death was put down as unspecified chronic cardiovascular disease. Mr Levon instituted civil proceedings, alleging that his father had not been provided with proper medical treatment, but the courts dismissed his complaints. He also attempted to have a criminal investigation opened against the hospital for wrongful death and falsification of documents, but it was discontinued at the pre-trial stage.

Relying on Articles 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial) and 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the Convention, Mr Levon alleges that the investigation into the treatment given to his father was ineffective.

Other Article 2 cases

Farmanyan and Others v. Armenia (application no. 15998/11 and 8 others)

N.T. v. Cyprus (no. 28150/22)

The applicant, Ms N.T., is a Cypriot national who was born in 1992 and lives in Larnaca. The case concerns the authorities’ investigation into her allegations of rape. In 2021, she reported to the police that she had been raped ten years earlier (when she had been eighteen years old) by a school friend, A.T. The police immediately opened an investigation and indicted her alleged aggressor, but the Deputy Attorney General ultimately decided to discontinue the criminal proceedings essentially based on alleged inconsistencies in the applicant’s statements and her admitting that she had “liked” A.T. and had perhaps sent him the “wrong signals.”

Relying on Articles 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), 8 (right to respect for private life), and 14 (prohibition of discrimination) of the European Convention, Ms N.T. complains that the authorities failed to effectively investigate and prosecute her allegations of rape and to follow a victim-sensitive approach, exposing her to secondary victimization and discrimination.

Bednarek and Others v. Poland (no. 58207/14)

The applicants are Stanisław Bednarek and Dawid Durejko, two Polish nationals who were born in 1991, and Vyacheslav Melnyk, a Ukrainian national who was born in 1992. They all live in Warsaw. The case concerns the applicants’ complaint about the authorities’ inadequate response to a homophobic attack against them.

On January 1, 2013 at about 3 am, they were assaulted and beaten by two brothers and another person while walking in one of Warsaw’s main streets. The first and the third applicants, who were a couple at the time, had been holding hands. They complained to the police, and the three aggressors were subsequently indicted and convicted of battery. All three were given a one-year suspended prison sentence and fined 100 Polish zlotys (approximately 25 euros).

Relying on Articles 3 (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment) and 14 (prohibition of discrimination) of the Convention, the applicants complain that the authorities had not taken into account the homophobic motivation of their attackers, and, instead, had investigated, prosecuted, and tried them for ordinary criminal offences. They also complain of a lack of adequate legislative and other measures in Poland to prosecute and combat hate crimes motivated by victims’ sexual orientation.

B.A. v. Iceland (no. 17006/20)

The applicant, B.A., is an Icelandic national who was born in 1975 and lives in Reykjavík. The case concerns alleged physical, psychological, and sexual violence that B.A. suffered at the hands of her former partner from 2011 to 2014, including alleged rape, after which she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. In 2017, she complained to the police, but the investigation was discontinued in 2019, a decision that was upheld by the State Prosecutor.

Relying on Articles 3 (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment), 8 (right to respect for private and family life), and 14 (prohibition of discrimination) of the Convention, B.A. alleges the investigation into her ill-treatment complaints was inadequate, and that this was a result of gender discrimination.

Other Article 3 Cases

E.A. and Association européenne contre les violences faites aux femmes au travail v. France (application no. 30556/22)

Cantemir v. Romania (no. 9915/19)

Scuderoni v. Italy (application no. 6045/24)

Atanasije Ristić v. Serbia (no. 38336/21)

The applicant, Atanasije Ristić, is a Serbian national who was born in 1994 and lives in Belgrade. Mr Ristić was arrested in 2017 and taken to a police station following his flight from officers. He was admitted for swallowing a plastic bag containing drugs while resisting arrest. The case concerns his being taken to the Military Medical Academy in Belgrade, where he was allegedly shackled and monitored, and given a laxative (allegedly, he was not told what exactly the drug was). As a result, a plastic bag containing amphetamine and caffeine powder was retrieved. He spent a total of ninety hours in the hospital.

Relying on Articles 3 (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment), 5 (right to liberty and security), and 13 (right to an effective remedy), Mr Ristić complains, in particular, that his treatment in hospital was degrading, and that his effective detention there was unlawful and arbitrary.

Other Article 5 cases

Selahattin Demirtaş v. Türkiye (No. 4) (application no. 13609/20)

Ismailaj and Others v. Albania (application no. 28873/22)

The applicants, Kastriot Ismailaj, Lutfije Ismailaj, and Adriatic Development Corporation Ltd SHPK, are, respectively, two Albanian nationals who were born in 1963 and 1941, respectively, and live in Tirana; and a company based in Albania. Confiscation of certain assets belonging to the applicants was ordered in March 2016 in connection with money laundering under the Anti-Mafia Act (Law no. 10192 of December 3, 2009, as amended, “On preventing and combatting organised crime and trafficking through measures against assets”). The case concerns the applicants’ cassation appeal before the Supreme Court.

Relying on Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial) of the European Convention on Human Rights, the applicants complain that the participation of Judge K.K. in the cassation proceedings had rendered the court partial.

Sakkou v. Cyprus (no. 4429/23)

The applicant, Charalambos Sakkou, is a Cypriot national who was born in 1979 and is serving a prison sentence in Nicosia. In 2020, Mr Sakkou was convicted of multiple drug offences and sentenced to six years of imprisonment. The conviction was based on the testimony of one of his accomplices, R., evidence given by two police officers, and telecommunications data. R. was himself also convicted of various drug offences. The case concerns Mr Sakkou’s allegation that his conviction was not fair because it had been based, to a decisive extent, on the testimony of R., his accomplice.

Relying on Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial) of the European Convention, Mr Sakkou argues in particular that the admission of R. into a witness protection program, the suspension of his prison sentence and his subsequent removal from Cyprus under a new identity—albeit after the applicant’s conviction—showed that R.’s testimony as a prosecution witness had been unreliable.

Opalenko v. Ukraine (no. 46673/18)

The applicant, Sergіy Vasylyovych Opalenko, is a Ukrainian national who was born in 1978 and is detained in Kaminne Prison (Ukraine). The case concerns the criminal proceedings against the applicant on charges of murdering his mother and his niece in 2010. Following several procedural turns, a new investigation was ordered, and he was retried and convicted in 2017. He was given a life sentence.

Relying on Article 6 (right to a fair trial) of the European Convention, Mr Opalenko alleges he was denied access to his lawyer at the start of proceedings, that witnesses were not examined in his retrial, and that the proceedings were excessively long.

Other Article 6 cases

Demirhan and Others v. Türkiye (applications nos. 1595/20 and 238 others)

Seppern v. Estonia (application no. 31722/22)

Wulffaert and Wulffaert Beheer NV v. Belgium (application no. 76634/16)

The applicants are two Belgian nationals and a Belgian public limited company, Wulffaert Beheer. The case concerns their criminal conviction for carrying out building work without planning permission. The applicants—who were each ordered to pay a criminal fine of 11,000 euros—submit that the Flemish Government decree, which was in force at the time of their conviction, exempted certain types of work from planning permission. They rely in this respect on the principle of the retrospective application of the more lenient criminal law, as guaranteed by Article 7 (no punishment without law) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

A.R. v. the United Kingdom (no. 6033/19)

The applicant, Mr A.R., is a British national who was born in 1978 and lives in Rochdale (the United Kingdom). The case concerns the 2011 and 2012 disclosure by the police, in the context of enhanced employment vetting, of information that the applicant had been charged with rape and had subsequently been acquitted at trial, and a description of the circumstances of the alleged offence.

Relying on Article 6 § 2 (presumption of innocence) and Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the European Convention, A.R. complains that the disclosure by the police violated his presumption of innocence and was not justified.

M.A. v. Iceland (no. 59813/19)

The applicant, M.A., is an Icelandic national who was born in 1972 and lives in Kopavogur (Iceland). The case concerns M.A.’s complaints to the police, accusing her then boyfriend of assaulting her twice in 2016 and threatening to send intimate images of her to her employer in 2017. She sought medical assistance after the two alleged attacks as she had suffered, among other injuries, a presumed broken toe. The subsequent investigation, opened in 2017, was discontinued in 2019. That decision was upheld by the State Prosecutor.

Relying on Articles 3 (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment), 8 (right to respect for private and family life), and 14 (prohibition of discrimination), B.A. alleges the investigation into her ill-treatment complaints was inadequate, and that this was a result of gender discrimination.

Ilareva and Others v. Bulgaria (application no. 24729/17)

The applicants, Valeria Ilareva, Lidia Staykova, and Krasimir Kanev, are Bulgarian nationals who were born in 1980, 1971, and 1958, respectively. Ms Ilareva and Mr Kanev live in Sofia, and Ms Staykova lives in Haskovo (Bulgaria). They are all involved in non-governmental organizations working for the protection of minority and migrant rights. The case concerns the national authorities’ alleged failure to conduct an effective investigation into graphic threats made toward the applicants in connection with their professional activities on Facebook.

Relying on Articles 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) and 8 (right to respect for private and family life), alone or in conjunction with Articles 13 (right to an effective remedy) and 14 (prohibition of discrimination) of the European Convention on Human Rights, the applicants submit that the authorities failed to effectively investigate their complaints.

Yakymchuk v. Ukraine (no. 26519/16)

The applicant, Olga Mykolayivna Yakymchuk, is a Ukrainian national who was born in 1962 and lives in Korets (Ukraine). She is a former judge. The case mainly concerns the allegedly unlawful covert video-recording of Ms Yakymchuk in her judge’s office and the lawfulness of subsequent criminal proceedings against her for bribe-taking.

Relying on Articles 6 (right to a fair hearing), 8 (right to respect for private and family life), and 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the Convention, the former judge complains that the covert audio- and video-recording of her conversations held in her office was unlawful and disproportionate and interfered with her right to respect for private life. She complains that the assignment of one of the judges to her case was unlawful, as not assigned via the automated random case-allocation system, that the first-instance court lacked independence and impartiality, that the length of the criminal proceedings was excessive, and that the national courts’ decisions lacked adequate reasoning. She also complains that she had no effective remedies in respect of her complaints regarding the length of criminal proceedings and the alleged unlawful interference with her right to respect for private life.

Other Article 8 cases

Korniyets and Others v. Ukraine (applications nos. 2599/16, 6904/16, and 12704/16)

Ludes and Others v. France (applications nos. 40899/22, 41621/22, and 42956/22)

The case concerned the criminal conviction of the applicants, environmental activists, and their sentencing to suspended fines, for theft committed as a joint enterprise, after they had taken down the official portrait of the French President in several town halls and refused to return it. They had been seeking to draw attention to the State’s inaction with regard to its COP21 climate-summit commitments and the fight against climate change more generally.

The Court first noted the care taken by the domestic courts to assess the proportionality of the interference in issue from the standpoint of Article 10 of the Convention, taking into account the context of the activities and the applicants’ motives. In particular, it was considered that the domestic courts had validly based their decisions to convict the applicants on the fact that the portraits had not been returned, after pointing out that taking them down alone would have been sufficient to convey the applicants’ message. Given both the small amount of the fines imposed and the fact that they had been suspended, the Court then concluded that the applicants’ sentences, which had been among the most lenient available, had not been disproportionate to the legitimate aim pursued.

Mzhavanadze and Rukhadze v. Georgia (nos. 29760/21 and 33931/21)

The applicants, Giorgi Mzhavanadze and Nodar Rukhadze, are Georgian nationals who were born in 1993 and 1996, respectively, and live in Tbilisi. They are founding members of the Shame Movement, a non-governmental organization aimed at supporting “Georgia’s democratic development and the process of its integration in the Euro-Atlantic space, protecting human rights, aiding the implementation of fair and free elections, raising civic awareness and informing citizens.” The case concerns the applicants’ arrest in November 2020 at a demonstration following the parliamentary elections of that year. They were arrested near the parliament building and charged with disobedience to the lawful orders of the police. Mr Mzhavanadze was sanctioned by three days of administrative detention, Mr Rukhadze was fined.

Relying on Articles 6 (right to a fair trial), 10 (freedom of expression), and 11 (freedom of assembly and association) of the European Convention, the applicants complain, in particular, of their arrest and conviction for demonstrating, and that the administrative-offence proceedings against them were unfair, in particular that the burden of proof fell on them. Mr Mzhavanadze also complains, under Article 2 of Protocol No. 7 (right of appeal in criminal matters), that the appellate court had not examined the merits of his appeal.

Ftiti v. Greece (no. 37957/14)

The applicant, Cherif Ftiti, is a Tunisian national who was born in 1973 and lives in Sousse (Tunisia). The case concerns the scheduling of Mr Ftiti’s appeal in a criminal case after he had been granted conditional release and was due to be expelled from Greece. He came to Greece in 1996, lived in Crete, and had two children there. His expulsion was ordered in 2009 following a conviction, against which he was appealing, for aggravated theft of livestock for which he received a seventeen-year prison sentence.

Relying on Article 2 of Protocol No. 7 (right of appeal in criminal matters) to the European Convention, Mr Ftiti complains of a violation of his right to appeal.