Potential liability for the state for inadequate protection
Supreme Court judgment of 25 April 2013, HR-2013-00881-A (case no. 2012/1900), civil case, appeal against judgment
The state repr. by the Ministry of Justice and Police Security (Counsel Fanny Platou Amble) v. NN (Counsel John Christian Elden)
In 1998, a man was convicted of violence against a woman with whom he had had a brief relationship. After having served the sentence he broke the restraining order on a number of occasions and subjected the woman for an extended period of time to threatening and frightening persecution which resembled mental harassment and terror. As a result of the persecution the woman’s quality of life was significantly impaired.
The Supreme Court concluded that the state had not fulfilled its obligation under the ECHR to protect her from persecution from the perpetrator. Decisive importance was attributed to the fact that the police’s follow-up of the continued violations of the restraining order was highly inadequate and to the fact that two potentially very serious threats were not investigated in any detail. The acts of the perpetrator undisputedly fell under Article 8 of the ECHR. Whether it also fell under Article 3 was left as an open question.