2. Anton Assenov was 14 years old when, in September 1992, during an incident with the police,
he suffered various bruises which the Court considered to be “sufficiently serious to amount to
ill-treatment within the scope of Article 3” (paragraph 95 of the judgment). However, the Court
found it impossible to establish on the basis of the evidence whether or not the applicant’s
injuries were caused by the police, as he asserted (paragraph 100).
For my part, I am of the opinion that once the allegation was made that these injuries were
caused by the police with their truncheons in connection with Mr Assenov’s arrest, it was up to
the Government “to provide a complete and sufficient explanation as to how the injuries were
caused” as firmly established by the Court’s jurisprudence, noted and quoted in paragraph 92 of
the judgment.
The Bulgarian authorities did not provide a complete and sufficient explanation of how a boy of
14 years came to sustain those severe injuries. Of course, his father did admit that he “took a
piece of plywood and hit his son” (paragraph 9) to show his disapproval of his son’s behaviour,
but plywood does not cause the serious injuries discovered by the doctor two days after the
incident in question. Police truncheons, however, can easily inflict such injuries.
3. Similarly, I consider that the way the applicant (now approximately 17 years old) was treated
in prison between July 1995 and March 1996, as described in paragraph 35 of the judgment,
constitutes in itself inhuman treatment, keeping in mind, especially, that we are dealing with a
minor who, in effect, was treated as a full-grown, mature criminal and lodged in a restricted cell
for all those months with another, or other, full-blown criminal or criminals.
4. These facts compel me to reach the conclusion that in respect of a young person of between 14
and 17 years of age, the Bulgarian authorities have violated the terms of Article 3 of the
Convention.
1. This summary by the registry does not bind the Court.
2. Rules of Court A apply to all cases referred to the Court before the entry into force of Protocol No. 9 (1 October
1994) and thereafter only to cases concerning States not bound by that Protocol. They correspond to the Rules that
came into force on 1 January 1983, as amended several times subsequently.