TrustHLT/LaCour huggingface dataset:
Marko Bošnjak (Judge): In their final conclusion, the Bulgarian prosecution authorities provided certain explanation as to why, in their view, the applicants' allegations did not correspond to the reality and why they allegedly were not reliable.
Marko Bošnjak (Judge): I wonder whether that particular hypothesis, as highlighted in that prosecutorial decision, was ever put to any expert evaluation, in the sense that any expert in Bulgaria or elsewhere would evaluate those statements, their veracity, for the purpose of Bulgarian inquiry and come up to such a conclusion as then highlighted in that particular prosecutorial decision.
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (JudgeP): Thank you very much, Judge Motoc.
Iulia Antoanella Motoc (Judge): Donc, mes questions sont au gouvernement et à la partie recurrente, sont les suivantes.
Iulia Antoanella Motoc (Judge): Donc, les deux, en commençant par les récurrents, ils ont invoqué certaines normes internationales, notamment la Convention sur le droit des enfants, certains commentaires qui sont issus par le Comité sur le droit des enfants, notamment le commentaire 4, relative à la santé des enfants.
Iulia Antoanella Motoc (Judge): Aussi, la Convention qui est fondamentale pour nous, la protection des enfants contre l'exploitation et l'abus sexuel, dite la Convention de l'Ansarothé.
Iulia Antoanella Motoc (Judge): Ma question est, étant tous ces documents internationaux que je ne vais pas citer, parce que vous les connaissez autant bien que moi, est-ce que vous pensez qu'il y a des normes minimales internationales concernant l'investigation effective des abus sexuels ou des plaintes par rapport aux abus sexuels?
Iulia Antoanella Motoc (Judge): Ma deuxième question est adressée au gouvernement, et est une question qui suit d'une certaine manière la question qui a été posée par mon collègue, le juge Sabato, et par la suite par mon collègue, le juge Bošnjak.
Iulia Antoanella Motoc (Judge): Est-ce que vous connaissez l'affaire?
Iulia Antoanella Motoc (Judge): Vous avez invoqué beaucoup des affaires de la Cour.
Iulia Antoanella Motoc (Judge): Est-ce que vous connaissez l'affaire Fernandes Pedroso contre le Portugal, qui est restée définitive en septembre 2018?
Iulia Antoanella Motoc (Judge): Est-ce que vous pouvez commenter certaines allégations du gouvernement bulgare par rapport à certains faits qui sont mis en évidence par cette affaire?
Iulia Antoanella Motoc (Judge): Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (JudgeP): Merci beaucoup, Mr. le juge Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque.
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): I have three questions, one for the applicants and two for the government.
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): For the applicants, I would like to know if there are any recent medical or psychological evaluations of the children regarding their mental well-being.
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): Do they still show or show now signs of trauma related to the alleged events that took place at the orphanage?
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): To the government, and these questions can also be addressed by the applicants.
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): The first question relates to the policy of deinstitutionalization.
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): Is this policy, the state's policy to deinstitutionalize, which resulted in the closing of the orphanage, an indicator of systemic child abuse in Bulgarian state institutions?
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): The second question refers to the investigation.
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): Is there any indication of bias towards allegations of sexual abuse of minors in Bulgaria?
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): I put this question against the background of SD versus Bulgaria, which noted systemic problems with effectiveness of investigations regarding violations of Article 2 and 3.
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): I quote the court, this court, "apart from repeated findings of failure to carry out necessary investigative measures in certain cases, the court noted that the competent authorities had not taken account of certain evidence and had not sought to sustain certain factual circumstances or the involvement of certain individuals in the criminal offense.
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): And then the court concludes, this non-exhaustive list of the various flaws found in a large number of cases reveals the existence of a systemic problem concerning the ineffectiveness of investigations in Bulgaria".
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): And this refers to Article 2 and 3 complaints.
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): I also take into account, as a background, the committee on the Rights of Children report of 2018, which states at the concluding observations that it is concerned, the committee is concerned, and I quote, with the sexual abuse among and against children living in institutional care homes in Bulgaria.
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): So is there a problem with the effectiveness, a systemic problem with the effectiveness of investigations regarding these type of crimes?
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Judge): This is the question put to the government.
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (JudgeP): Thank you very much, Judge Elósegui.
María Elósegui (Judge): I have one question for the government and another for the applicants.
María Elósegui (Judge): Starting with the first one, I would like to know more about the research or investigation in the orphanage.
María Elósegui (Judge): Concretely, you have said that these interviews were done by psychologists and social workers, now in the hearing, but I read also in the files that some of the research was done by the police directly.
María Elósegui (Judge): Then I want to know if the police did the interview to the children and also if the people, the workers from the orphanage, were there present in this research or in this investigation.
María Elósegui (Judge): How was it done?
María Elósegui (Judge): That's all for the government.
María Elósegui (Judge): And then going to the applicants, I would like to have more information about the way you have used to denounce these facts and why you go to the media first or to some journalist instead of to, I don't say to the Bulgarian authorities, but why don't go to the official domestic institutions in Italy, even if they have no jurisdiction and so on, but just to go to the prosecutor or also to civil domestic national Italian authorities.
María Elósegui (Judge): Why was that done in another way or what was the way?
Ksenija Turković (Judge): You have extensively criticized the method that was used in Italy in questioning the children.
Ksenija Turković (Judge): I would like to know what kind of method were Bulgarian authorities using interviewing the children and why this method was better, if some method was used.
Ksenija Turković (Judge): Then what kind of follow up Bulgarian authorities are doing when children are adopted or when they get the information that some problems might exist?
Ksenija Turković (Judge): More concretely, did you contact and follow up what was happening with the children coming from the same orphanage who were adopted approximately at the same time?
Ksenija Turković (Judge): And then the area that was not at all addressed is the issue that interests me, and these are preventive measures.
Ksenija Turković (Judge): We have heard a number of preventive measures that have been taken in terms of the possibility of adults to come to the orphanage and to have access to the children.
Ksenija Turković (Judge): What kind of preventive measures Bulgarian authorities have in institutions like this one to prevent possible sexual abuse among or between children themselves?
Ksenija Turković (Judge): And at what age sexual education of children in Bulgaria starts?
Ksenija Turković (Judge): If it is there at all.
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (JudgeP): La cour va maintenant se retirer pour 30 minutes, après quoi les partis pourront présenter de brèves observations en réponse aux plaidoiries adverses et répondre aux questions des juges.
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (JudgeP): Please, be seated.
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (JudgeP): La parole est à Maître Mauceri, vous avez la parole.
AP3 (Applicant): I will shortly reply and answer, and I will ask the permit to let also to the expert to give some answer.
AP3 (Applicant): About what we listen from the government, I note and I see that Bulgaria continues in the path of mystification.
AP3 (Applicant): Nothing did exist, nothing happened.
AP3 (Applicant): But we listen that the orphanage now is closed.
AP3 (Applicant): Maybe it's interesting to know why it was closed.
AP3 (Applicant): And they keep pretending that it doesn't exist.
AP3 (Applicant): But they admit that there were any investigations.
AP3 (Applicant): As the convention prescribes, were not collaboration between authority judicial Bulgarian and Italian judicial Bulgarian.
AP3 (Applicant): There were not recorded hearings.
AP3 (Applicant): There were not also the measures that the convention specifies prescribes for this kind of investigation.
AP3 (Applicant): I agreed and appreciated the questions.
AP3 (Applicant): And about the medical, legal examination, I want to remark again that the typical, the best scientific medical, legal examination is not the physic visit of a gynecologist, but is the psychologic report.
AP3 (Applicant): And we produced the psychologic reports that in this case were acquired from Italian judicial authorities.
AP3 (Applicant): And we referred the way to verify them.
AP3 (Applicant): And they were made with all the criterias of the chance.
AP3 (Applicant): And I ask about them to let answer the experts near me, Mrs. Bacchengalante.
AP3 (Applicant): I only have to answer now to the questions about the time of the denounce to Italian authority and to the press.
AP3 (Applicant): The applicants were, when as notice of this terrible case, were immediately to telephone Azzurro Company, who operate in Italy in accordance with judge Italian authority, and concorded with them to go to the procura of Tribunal of Milano.
AP3 (Applicant): Then they asked the two agency of the state of Bulgaria to help them, to indicate some authority to care of this case in 16 November 2012.
AP3 (Applicant): The first denounce to TelefonAzzurro was in 5 October 2012.
AP3 (Applicant): In 22 November 2012, the applicants went to the Ministry of Justice of Italy.
AP3 (Applicant): Only then, and then they went also to the police, the Postal Police Italiana, Polizia Postale Italiana.
AP3 (Applicant): Only then, listening that Fabrizio Gatti was working about this kind of problems, they met him.
AP3 (Applicant): And they spoke with him.
AP3 (Applicant): Only them, only with Fabrizio Gatti.
AP3 (Applicant): And then he wanted to investigate, but without saying which orphanage was implicated in this case.
AP3 (Applicant): If you permit, I will give the words to the expert.
AP3 (Applicant): And I hope that the court will recall Bulgaria's state and bring it back to the path of love and human rights.
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (JudgeP): Acting as council, the council can take the floor on the basis of the rules, please.
AP2 (Applicant): If it pleases the court, I should like to address the question of the assessment that was used, the criterion-based content analysis, and why this was chosen.
AP2 (Applicant): This is an internationally recognized, well-validated statement of veracity of a witness.
AP2 (Applicant): It has been initially construed and written together and experimented because they had to prove the validity of this instrument, and following this, which was used in child abuse cases.
AP2 (Applicant): So this is unlike many instruments that we use in psychology.
AP2 (Applicant): It actually originated as an instrument to ascertain the veracity of a child victim of sexual abuse.
AP2 (Applicant): This is not an inventory, nor is it a checklist.
AP2 (Applicant): It is a series of interviews, semi-structured interviews, which are videotaped and subsequently evaluated according to particular criteria.
AP2 (Applicant): I have here the criteria before me.
AP2 (Applicant): I could read them to you.
AP2 (Applicant): There are 18 criteria.
AP2 (Applicant): Following the 18 criteria, the assessor and subsequent assessors examine the reporting style, the display insecurities, the reasons for lack of memory in certain situations, cliches and repetitions in the narrative of the individual reporting.
AP2 (Applicant): So that I can also cite several studies.
AP2 (Applicant): My colleague, Rij, who was mentioned earlier from 2005, has subsequently written several papers on this subject.
AP2 (Applicant): And I also have a paper here from 2015 on the inter-rater reliability of this particular analysis.
AP2 (Applicant): This was chosen by Professor Kimnitz as a validated tool to assess the veracity of the children's statements following a long series of questions which had been posed by the psychologists and medical examiners as well as law authorities.
AP2 (Applicant): Is what their children saying true?
AP2 (Applicant): So that a very young child may not be plausible, and they may have been incapable of communicating what has happened as a 12 or 13-year-old can attest to.
AP2 (Applicant): So that my colleague is going to discuss further ways of assessing the veracity and the validity of the child's narrative.
AP2 (Applicant): But I'm hoping that this perhaps answers some questions.
AP2 (Applicant): And I'm more than willing to submit this list of validated assessments and examinations and printed papers published in recognized medical legal journals of the use of this instrument, CBCA.
AP1 (Applicant): First, I would like to thank the judges for their questions, because it has been rare in my long career, I've been working 40 years in this field, to have such pertinent questions by people who are not psychiatrists or psychologists.
AP1 (Applicant): I have three points.
AP1 (Applicant): I'm trying to put them together because of the limits of time.
AP1 (Applicant): But if the answers are too brief, please ask me, and I will elaborate.
AP1 (Applicant): I would like to cover three points.
AP1 (Applicant): One is the hallucinations.
AP1 (Applicant): I beg the court to realize that we are not so incompetent that after so many years of work, we cannot tell the difference between a hallucination and a real event that is, however, a traumatizing event.
AP1 (Applicant): And so it is remembered in a very disjointed, non-chronical way so that the events are not told in the timeline in which they happened.
AP1 (Applicant): The events are never told the same way twice.
AP1 (Applicant): The events are told with varying degrees of emotion, at times with no emotion at all.
AP1 (Applicant): There are a series of indications of when it is a hallucination and when it is a real event.
AP1 (Applicant): And one has to be incredibly incompetent to mistake the two.
AP1 (Applicant): The second thing that was brought up was that the father who was present during just the first interview I had with ____, I had been working with these children for seven years.
AP1 (Applicant): At the beginning, it was very intense.
AP1 (Applicant): I saw them at least once a week.
AP1 (Applicant): And over the years, it has slowed down.
AP1 (Applicant): It was then every other week, then every three weeks.
AP1 (Applicant): Now it's every four weeks.
AP1 (Applicant): They, in the very first interview, it is true, ____ spoke Italian poorly.
AP1 (Applicant): It is true that a couple of times, the father intervened to tell me that he had learned that the Bulgarian word that ____ was using means such and such because he'd been very close to the children since they had arrived, as had the mother, their wonderful parents.
AP1 (Applicant): At any rate, when I saw this difficulty, I went and got the anatomical dolls I have for people who are foreigners or who are very young and have difficulty.
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (JudgeP): May I remind you that you are here acting as an advisor to the delegation.
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (JudgeP): You are not acting as an expert.
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (JudgeP): You are acting as an advisor to the delegation.
AP1 (Applicant): Speak about what I see, the trauma that I see in the children today.
AP1 (Applicant): Is that pertinent?
AP1 (Applicant): Because somebody asked.
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (JudgeP): More of an expertise.
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (JudgeP): It's not acting as a true advisor of the applicants here.
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (JudgeP): It's not your role to do that here.
AP1 (Applicant): Okay, what can I say?
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (JudgeP): It is, you have submitted those evidence in your written pleading, so it's okay.
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (JudgeP): If the council wants to expand on this in replying the question of the judges, he can.
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (JudgeP): But you are not acting as an expert here.
AP1 (Applicant): So I can speak about how traumatized the children are still today.
AP1 (Applicant): Okay.
AP1 (Applicant): The...
AP1 (Applicant): has...
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (JudgeP): Please don't use the names.
AP1 (Applicant): Yes, I was just reminded of that.
AP1 (Applicant): I'm sorry, I made a mistake.
AP1 (Applicant): The oldest boy has incredible difficulty with relations with other people outside the family.
AP1 (Applicant): Fortunately, the parents have a large group of extended family, and so he has relationships with them.
AP1 (Applicant): He has trust of very few people in the world.
AP1 (Applicant): He sees things in a very rigid way.
AP1 (Applicant): He thinks that everybody should always be punished for everything.
AP1 (Applicant): He has no flexibility, and therefore he has no friends.
AP1 (Applicant): As I said, the family has been compensating for the lack of social relationships that he has with other people.
AP1 (Applicant): And having a large family, this is a great help.
AP1 (Applicant): But he has never made friends at school, has never gone out with boys, and is always extremely suspicious.
AP1 (Applicant): The second child, who is a girl, has at times totally repressed any memory of anything to do with Bulgaria.
AP1 (Applicant): She doesn't remember the language.
AP1 (Applicant): She doesn't remember the places.
AP1 (Applicant): She doesn't remember the institute.
AP1 (Applicant): Then at other times, she has flashes, which is typical of post-traumatic stress syndrome, of events that took place and gets very disturbed, and then they're repressed within a few days.
AP1 (Applicant): This is also a typical reaction of long-term chronic sexual abuse.
AP1 (Applicant): I saw the children a few weeks after they arrived.
AP1 (Applicant): There was no time for these symptoms to have been developed in that short time period, because they're typical of chronic long-term abuse.
AP1 (Applicant): The youngest one, another girl, has phobic reactions to a series of stimuli.
AP1 (Applicant): And this is also typical of post-traumatic stress symptoms.
AP1 (Applicant): She is afraid when her mother leaves the house to go do something, and has put severe restrictions on the movement of the mother, who tries to reassure her.
AP1 (Applicant): She's never made any friends, and she tries to hide her face.
AP1 (Applicant): She combs her hair so that you can't see her eyes.
AP1 (Applicant): She has difficulty responding verbally to the teachers at school.
AP1 (Applicant): Therefore, the teachers have offered to let her write her answers.
AP1 (Applicant): And even here, she has difficulty, although she's an extremely bright, intelligent girl.
AP1 (Applicant): Seven years have gone by.
AP1 (Applicant): I've worked very hard, and I see some progress.
AP1 (Applicant): But then, if there is a stimulus that reminds them of what they've been through, they regress, and then you have to start all over again.
AP1 (Applicant): So the children have been severely damaged and severely traumatized.
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (JudgeP): I call Mrs. Nikolova.
GR1 (Government): I will respond some of the questions and my colleague will address the others.
GR1 (Government): According to the criminal procedure code, pretrial proceedings are instituted only if sufficient data are available and where reasonable assumption can be made that a crime, criminal offense, had been committed.
GR1 (Government): In the present case, those requirements were not fulfilled.
GR1 (Government): The authorities collected all relevant data and they checked the orphanage, interviewed the children, and the staff who could have had a direct knowledge of the impugned facts.
GR1 (Government): With regard to the contradictions in the testimonies in the hearing before the Italian prosecutor, this was the only verbatim record that were at the disposal of the Bulgarian authorities.
GR1 (Government): And when evaluating them, the prosecutor was aware that they should be evaluated very carefully.
GR1 (Government): However, the data contained did not correspond to the facts and circumstances already established and did not shed new light on the impugned facts.
GR1 (Government): As concerned the children questioned, only one children was required to submit written statements because at the time when the investigation was held, the other children did not reside already at the orphanage, as the children mentioned in their testimonies.
GR1 (Government): As concerns the third questions, none of the investigative steps taken by the authorities revealed any data that would corroborate the applicant's allegations.
GR1 (Government): The authorities' choice not to request legal assistance, again, was not arbitrary or unreasonable.
GR1 (Government): As concerns the preventive measures, the adverse party have not really put whatever evidence as to what should have been in place in terms of safeguards preventing any risk of ill-treatment.
GR1 (Government): And the Bulgarian authorities had undertaken very measures in terms of complaint box, telephone helpline, in order to prevent such an abuse to take place.
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (JudgeP): Merci beaucoup. Nous en arrivons au terme de l'audience, je vous remercie.
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (JudgeP): You want to continue, please go ahead.
GR2 (Government): With regard to the fourth question, the government at present is not able to comment the Fernando Perez versus Portugal.
GR2 (Government): However, we could make additional written comments if this is necessary.
GR2 (Government): Concerning the question about the process of deinstitutionalization in Bulgaria, the government point out that this process is connected with the overall transition of the Bulgarian state from a socialist system to democratic society.
GR2 (Government): It is a very big process and has nothing to do with the systematic abuses of these institutions.
GR2 (Government): It is true that there were some cases of this kind.
GR2 (Government): Some of them even reached the present court.
GR2 (Government): However, the process of deinstitutionalization started in the beginning of this century and it approaches its end already.
GR2 (Government): By 2015, all institutions for children with disabilities were already closed and the children were moved to residential homes and to foster families.
GR2 (Government): With regard to the children deprived of parental care, currently there are less than 50 such institutions in Bulgaria.
GR2 (Government): We could provide the particular statistics about this.
GR2 (Government): Concerning the next question about SZ versus Bulgaria, the government point out that first SZ is a very different case from the current one.
GR2 (Government): There was approved rape there by medical documents and the violation found concerned the lack of reasonable and adequate action taken by the Bulgarian investigative authorities.
GR2 (Government): However, this judgment of the court is currently being executed and a lot of legislative and other measures have already been taken.
GR2 (Government): The criminal procedure code that acted while the SZ facts occurred, it doesn't act.
GR2 (Government): There is a new criminal procedure code and the rules are different.