Gjikondi and Others v. Greece, No. 17249/10 and other 3, ECtHR (First Section), 21 December 2017

Right to life. Racist murder. Obligation to carry out effective investigations. Link between racist attitudes and acts of violence.

Art. 2 ECHR

Arts. 2 and 3 ECHR enshrine fundamental values of the democratic societies making up the Council of Europe. From these provisions derives the obligation for national authorities to carry out effective investigations against suspected violations of the European Convention. Specifically, when investigating violent incidents, such as acts of murderer or 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 (case in which the Court of Strasbourg found a violation of Article 2 ECHR, from a procedural point of view, because the competent national authorities had failed to investigate the possible racist motive of the homicidal attack, despite the presence of specific hate crime indicators).

In the grounds for the judgment, the Strasbourg Court observed, in particular, that the main suspect had never been questioned on his general attitude to the victim’s ethnocultural group, nor had the authorities sought to ascertain, for example, whether he had in the past been involved in violent acts with racial overtones or if he had had sympathies with extremist or racist ideologies.