Moldova was found guilty by the ECHR in a new case. The applicant alleged that the authorities had failed to carry out an effective investigation into her son’s death, IPN reports, quoting a communiqué from the Jurists for Human Rights Association, which offered legal advice to the young man’s mother.

On 8 March 2008, the applicant’s seventeen-year-old son died after falling from one of the common-use balconies in an apartment block. The police opened a preliminary inquiry into the causes of the young man’s death, the most likely explanation being suicide. A medical expert report found that he had died from severe injuries caused by his fall; no traces of alcohol or narcotic drugs had been found in his blood.

Some fifteen persons were questioned as witnesses during the following three months. According to the applicant, some of the witnesses mentioned that the young man had talked to two men on the day of his death. Three witnesses allegedly stated that they had seen a young man and a young woman exiting the building and leaving the place in a hurry, taking a taxi shortly after the victim had fallen. The applicant also stated that her son had been contacted on his mobile phone number by persons unknown to her and that her son had been upset after these discussions.

Until 2010, the investigator in charge of the case proposed at least eight times that no criminal investigation be initiated since there was no evidence that any offence had been committed, the victim having committed suicide. In August 2010, the investigating judge of the Ciocana District Court dismissed the applicant’s complaint as unfounded. That decision was final.

The Court noted that the prosecutor’s decisions not to initiate a criminal investigation and the decision of the investigating judge of August 2010 completely failed to mention her request to obtain information from the relevant mobile phone operator about the person(s) who had called the victim prior to his death or the statements made by the assistants from the nearby shop, which the applicant had mentioned in her complaint.

The Court awarded the applicant €12,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage and €422 in respect of costs and expenses.