In cooperation with the international NGO European Roma Rights Centre, we have sent a submission to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in which we point out the insufficient implementation of three recent judgments of the European Court of Human Rights against Slovakia in cases of police violence against the Roma minority. The Committee of Ministers oversees the implementation of these judgments.

In one of these judgments, the European Court ruled on the violation of the rights of two Roma who faced violence during a well-publicised police raid in Moldava nad Bodvou in 2013. The other two judgments relate to the equally well-known case of the abuse of Roma boys at a police station in Košice in 2009, in which the European Court also ruled on a serious violation of the rights of the victims.

In all three of these cases monitored by the Committee, our NGO Poradňa provided free legal assistance to the affected persons and, with our support, they obtained justice.

In our joint submission, we analyse the current situation and point out that the Slovak Government has still not taken the necessary measures to remedy the serious shortcomings in the investigation of police violence highlighted by the European Court in its judgments and to prevent such cases in the future.

We recommend that the Committee continue to monitor the implementation of the judgments and communicate to our Government the need to take effective measures in this area.

Our submission is available here.