Stoica v. Romania, No. 42722/02, ECtHR (Third Section), 4 March 2008

Prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment. Violent behavior by police officers driven by ethnic or racial biases. Obligation to carry out effective investigations. Link between racist attitudes and acts of violence Prohibition of discrimination. Burden of proof.

Art. 3 ECHR 
Art. 14 ECHR

1. When investigating violent incidents such as acts of ill-treatment, State authorities have an additional duty to take all reasonable steps to unmask any racist motive and to establish whether or not ethnic hatred or prejudice may have played a role in the events at hand. Proving racial motivation will admittedly often be difficult in practice. For this reason, the respondent State’s obligation to investigate possible racist overtones to a violent act is an obligation to use best endeavours and not absolute. In other words, the authorities must do what is reasonable in the circumstances to collect and secure the evidence, explore all practical means of discovering the truth and deliver fully reasoned, impartial and objective decisions, without omitting suspicious facts that may be indicative of racially motivated violence.
2. Where it is alleged that a violent act was motivated by racial prejudice, shifting automatically the burden of proof to the respondent Government might amount to requiring the latter to prove in any case the absence of a particular subjective attitude on the part of the person concerned.
3. The use of stereotyped remarks, expression of ethnic prejudice, in official reports prove that the police officers were not racially neutral, either in the impugned conduct of the authorities or throughout the subsequent investigation (case in which a report from the local police office described the village’s alleged aggressive behavior as "pure Gypsy").