GIULIANI AND GAGGIO v. ITALY JUDGMENT
67
McCann and Others and Andronicou and Constantinou, both cited above)
and those where the issue is the maintenance of order in the face of possible
disturbances spread over an area as wide as an entire city, as in the instant
case. Only in the first category of cases can all the officers involved be
expected to be highly specialised in dealing with the task assigned to them.
256. It follows that no violation of Article 2 of the Convention can be
found solely on the basis of the selection, for the G8 summit in Genoa, of a
carabiniere who, like M.P., was only twenty years and eleven months of
age at the material time and had been serving for only ten months (see
paragraph 35 above). The Court also points out that it has already held that
M.P.'s actions during the attack on the jeep did not amount to a breach of
Article 2 in its substantive aspect (see paragraphs 194-195 above). It has not
been established that he took unconsidered initiatives or acted without
proper instructions (contrast Makaratzis, cited above, § 70).
257. It therefore remains to be ascertained whether the decisions taken
on Piazza Alimonda immediately before the attack on the jeep by the
demonstrators were in breach of the obligation to protect life. To that end
the Court must take account of the information available to the authorities at
the time the decisions were taken. There was nothing at that juncture to
indicate that Carlo Giuliani, more than any other demonstrator or any of the
persons present at the scene, was the potential target of a lethal act. Hence,
the authorities were not under an obligation to provide him with personal
protection, but were simply obliged to refrain from taking action which, in
general terms, was liable to clearly endanger the life and physical integrity
of any of the persons concerned.
258. The Court considers it conceivable, in an emergency situation such
as that prevailing after the clashes of 20 July 2001, that the law-enforcement
agencies might have to use non-armoured logistical support vehicles to
transport injured officers. Likewise, it does not appear unreasonable not to
have required the vehicles concerned to travel to hospital immediately, as
this would have placed them at risk of crossing, without protection, a part of
the city where further disturbances could have broken out. Before the attack
in Via Caffa which, as the Court has just observed, was entirely sudden and
unforeseeable (see paragraph 254 above), everything seemed to indicate that
the jeeps were better protected on Piazza Alimonda, where they were next
to a contingent of carabinieri. Furthermore, there is nothing in the file to
suggest that the physical condition of the carabinieri in the jeep was so
serious that they needed to be taken to hospital straightaway as a matter of
urgency; the officers concerned were for the most part suffering from the
effects of prolonged exposure to tear gas.
259. The jeeps next followed the detachment of carabinieri when the
latter moved off towards Via Caffa; the reasons for this decision are not
clear from the file. It may be that the move was made to avoid being cut off,
which, as subsequent events demonstrated, could have been extremely
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