On 12 December 2023, the European Court of Human Rights published its judgment in the case of Vučković v. Croatia, application number: 15798/20, which found that the Republic of Croatia, in criminal proceedings conducted for sexual violence committed against the applicant, Ms. Maja Vučković, by imposing a disproportionately lenient sentence on the perpetrator, violated the applicant's rights guaranteed by Articles 3 and 8 of the European Convention.
At the end of 2019, the applicant contacted the BaBe association with a complaint that the perpetrator who sexually abused her at work had been sentenced to community service in criminal proceedings, after which, with the support of BaBe association lawyers Ines Bojić and Zvjezdana Kuprešak, a request was submitted to the European Court of Human Rights for violation of the applicant's right as a victim of sexual violence to effective punishment of the perpetrator of violence.
The applicant, as well as the BaBe association, contacted the Gender Equality Ombudsperson, who also provided her with support, made recommendations and spoke out in the media regarding her case. The European Court found that by imposing a community service sentence on the perpetrator of sexual violence, the Republic of Croatia violated the state's positive obligations arising from Articles 3 and 8 of the European Convention, finding that the sentence was imposed on the perpetrator without carefully examining all relevant circumstances of the case, taking into account the interests of the victim and the context of the specific social danger of violence against women and the need to suppress such violence with effective and dissuasive penalties.
The European Court expressed the view that such an approach by domestic courts could be understood as an indication of leniency in punishing violence against women instead of conveying a strong message to the community that violence against women will not be tolerated and that such leniency could have a discouraging effect on victims to report violence, which is supported by the recent GREVIO report on Croatia, which highlighted that Croatia has adopted a lenient penal policy in handling cases of domestic violence and violence against women, which is why the Government is called upon to ensure that the penalties and measures imposed in such cases are effective, proportionate and dissuasive.
Therefore, with this ruling, the European Court has expressed a clear position on the unacceptability of the policy of lenient punishment of perpetrators of gender-based violence in the Republic of Croatia, which the BaBe association has continuously warned about, and we believe that this ruling will have a positive effect and contribute to a further change in awareness about the need to effectively punish perpetrators of violence against women.
The judgment was published in English and is available at https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/?i=001-229399
