Slovakia and Strasbourg

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in the case of Slovak women Katarína Kuruová and Helena Horváthová against the Slovak Republic ordered the Slovak Republic to pay a total of 28,560 euros. The reason is the violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights on the prohibition of torture and Article 14 on the prohibition of discrimination.

This case concerns an incident between the two applicants – two Romnja sisters – and the police, which took place on 23 July 2019. On that day, the police detained the women in the village of Milhosť in eastern Slovakia and took them to the police station in the village of Čaňa, where they remained until the early hours of the following morning. They were not questioned during their detention and, according to the ECHR judgment, were described in the detention records as a “gang of local Romani women”.

In their application, the applicants allege violence by the police, which they described as “unjustified, disproportionate and based on bias against them”. They say the investigation into the use of such force was not thorough and independent.