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ĐORĐEVIĆ v. CROATIA JUDGMENT
(see Costello-Roberts v. the United Kingdom, 25 March 1993, § 30,
Series A no. 247-C, and A. v. the United Kingdom, 23 September 1998,
§ 20, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1998-VI).
95. Treatment has been held by the Court to be “inhuman” because, inter
alia, it was premeditated, was applied for hours at a stretch and caused
either actual bodily injury or intense physical and mental suffering
(see Labita v. Italy [GC], no. 26772/95, § 120, ECHR 2000-IV). Treatment
has been considered “degrading” when it was such as to arouse in its
victims feelings of fear, anguish and inferiority capable of humiliating and
debasing them and possibly breaking their physical or moral resistance
(see Hurtado v. Switzerland, 28 January 1994, opinion of the Commission,
§ 67, Series A no. 280-A, and Wieser v. Austria, no. 2293/03, § 36,
22 February 2007).
96. The Court considers that the harassment of the first applicant –
which on at least one occasion also caused him physical injuries, combined
with feelings of fear and helplessness – was sufficiently serious to reach the
level of severity required to fall within the scope of Article 3 of the
Convention and thus make this provision applicable in the present case (see
Price v. the United Kingdom, no. 33394/96, § 24, ECHR 2001-VII, and
Milanović v. Serbia, no. 44614/07, § 87, 14 December 2010).
(ii) In respect of the second applicant
97. As regards the second applicant, the Court notes that she has not
been exposed to any form of violence affecting her physical integrity.
However, there is no doubt that the continued harassment of the first
applicant – her disabled son, of whom she has been taking care – and the
incidents of harassment which also concerned her personally, even in their
milder forms, caused disruption to her daily life and her routines, which had
an adverse effect on her private and family life. Indeed, the moral integrity
of an individual is covered by the concept of private life. The concept of
private life extends also to the sphere of the relations of individuals between
themselves.
98. It follows that Article 8 is applicable to the circumstances of the
present case as regards the complaints concerning the second applicant.
(b) Exhaustion of domestic remedies
99. The Court points out that the purpose of Article 35 is to afford the
Contracting States the opportunity of preventing or putting right the
violations alleged against them before those allegations are submitted to the
Convention institutions. Consequently, States are dispensed from answering
for their acts before an international body before they have had an
opportunity to put matters right through their own legal system. The rule of
exhaustion of domestic remedies referred to in Article 35 of the Convention
requires that normal recourse should be had by an applicant only to