The Swiss authorities failed in their positive obligation to protect the life of a woman from violence by her partner (ECtHR)

In the case of N.D. v. Switzerland, the European Court of Human Rights held that there had been a violation of the right to life in a case involving violence against a woman by her partner.

The applicant, who had been unaware of her partner’s criminal record, was kidnapped by him from her home after informing him that she wished to end their relationship. She was then falsely imprisoned over an 11-hour period and subjected to rape and ill-treatment. To this day, the applicant suffers from the psychological after-effects of the treatment inflicted on her.

The Court found that the authorities had not done all that could reasonably have been expected of them to avert the real and immediate risk to the applicant’s life, of which they had been or ought to have been aware. It noted that there had been neither an adequate assessment of the risk to the applicant’s life nor operational measures which might have had a real chance of altering the course of events or mitigating the damage caused. In view of the lack of sufficient coordination between the various services and the shortcomings in the domestic law in force at the time, the Swiss authorities had failed to comply with their positive obligation to protect the applicant’s life from her partner’s violent actions.

The Court held that Switzerland was to pay the applicant 30,000 euros (EUR) for non-pecuniary damage and 22,000 EUR for costs and expenses. (source echr.coe.int/photo freepik.com)


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