TrustHLT/LaCour huggingface dataset:
AP1 (Applicant): Now, the government claims that identifying a person as a victim of human trafficking is a purely administrative character merely served purposes of providing medical, psychological, and other aid, so does not automatically redraw application of Article 4.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant holds that by such claim, the government de facto acknowledged that the relevant criminal law mechanism were defective to the point of constituting a violation of respondent state positive obligation under Article 4.
AP1 (Applicant): Precisely for this and similar reasons in many other cases, the High Commission of Human Rights expressed concern about the problem of human trafficking in the respondent state.
AP1 (Applicant): State Department and the CEDAW committee expressed their concerns and made recommendation, I quoted, it is in the file.
AP1 (Applicant): The new report, a relevant part of the latest 2018 country reports of human rights practices, stated that, and I quote, the government of Croatia does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.
AP1 (Applicant): Recommendation for 2018 are the same, forcefully investigate, prosecute, and convict traffickers, and impose strong sentences, train judges to understand the issue of secondary trauma on the sex trafficking testimony, among other things.
AP1 (Applicant): The issues and questions that arise from this case and similar ones lead to concerns and current recommendations that were given to the respondent state.
AP1 (Applicant): This means that the government has still not fulfilled the special obligations arising from the convention and the given recommendation, even six years after this case.
AP1 (Applicant): In accordance with recommendation and national laws, the applicant claims to the grand chamber that the procedure for identifying the victim of trafficking in human beings does not have and must not only have an administrative character for the purpose of assisting victim of violence and its integration.
AP1 (Applicant): This procedure must also imply the duty of state authorities to be effective and to carefully carry out an investigation by the state attorney office.
AP1 (Applicant): Also, it must apply the duty that the whole subject is carefully evaluated by the court, which in the particular case did not happen.
AP1 (Applicant): It is not disputed that Ministry of Eternal Affairs identified the victim of human trafficking immediately after suspicion of a potential trafficking case, as it is prescribed by the relevant protocol.
AP1 (Applicant): This suspicion of a particular criminal offense, therefore, direct whole system to one, helping the victim, as government claims, but also an efficient and effective investigation.
AP1 (Applicant): Criminal Procedure Act stipulates that if there are grounds for suspicion that a criminal offense prosecuted ex officio is committed, the police is obliged to take necessary measures.
AP1 (Applicant): And on the basis of collected information, the police compile the criminal report and submit it to the state attorney's office.
AP1 (Applicant): In the present case, the police and state attorney office received from the applicant all the information that was useful for successful conduct of a criminal proceedings.
AP1 (Applicant): But from the total of five possible witnesses mentioned in this court decision, they decide to hear only one witness during the criminal proceeding.
AP1 (Applicant): Other objects were fined, an arsenal of weapons in a context of coercion, cell phones and condoms in a context of exploitation of prostitution.
AP1 (Applicant): But they have not been used in a criminal proceeding with a goal to successfully conduct the proceeding through the conviction or through further, heavier incrimination, trafficking in human beings, illegal possession of weapons, or others.
AP1 (Applicant): So the investigation was supposed to be more effective in order that more evidence collected could lead to a conviction.
AP1 (Applicant): However, irrespective of above, the file of this case gave the national court enough elements to make the conviction.
AP1 (Applicant): But the court did not recognize and understand the impact of trauma and secondary trauma to this victim.
AP1 (Applicant): Furthermore, the national court considered the applicant testimony to be inconsistent with the testimony of the only witness heard.
AP1 (Applicant): But this inconsistency can be found only in irrelevant details.
AP1 (Applicant): The result of all this was a quitting judgment with all the consequences it brings.
AP1 (Applicant): And for this reason, we stand today in front of the grand chamber.
AP1 (Applicant): Therefore, when the court consider an issue such as violation of Article IV, the court does not take over the role of a four-instance court or the state attorney office as stated by the government in its observation to the grand chamber this year.
AP1 (Applicant): By examining this case like any other case before the court, the court compares the actual evidentiary proceeding with the expected evidentiary proceeding in order to draw a conclusion as whether the investigation and the criminal proceedings as a whole were effective or not.
AP1 (Applicant): So when the applicant states in her statements of facts that she was identified as a victim of trafficking in human beings and that proceedings were conducted with acquittal, and then in the legal arguments that the obligation of the state was to carry out an effective and efficient investigation, then it gave a sufficient element to this court that it considers the application in the scope of Article IV in accordance with the principles set forth in the judgment Radomila v. Croatia.
AP1 (Applicant): In the context of this case, it is important to point out that these two elements from Radomila v. Croatia principles,
AP1 (Applicant): the facts and legal arguments, intervene with each other since the facts to which it's objected must be considered in the light of the above legal arguments and vice versa.
AP1 (Applicant): There is no talk of decision making beyond the scope of this case if, by applying the principle of jura novit curia, the court gives a new characterization to the facts objected to.
AP1 (Applicant): In this case, the court, by applicant meaning, with justification estimated that it was in the interest of the court and of the justice to determine the violation of Article IV.
AP1 (Applicant): Regarding applicant's activity, considering this case under the pretext of separate opinion and objections of the government, a new issue emerged, the question of the applicant activity during the criminal proceedings, which even though the applicant was represented by an attorney at law, she didn't propose evidence itself.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant claims she was not passive.
AP1 (Applicant): She has given statements three times and provided detailed information about the event and also identify all possible witnesses.
AP1 (Applicant): In the meantime, she tried to gather broken pieces of her life and restore feeling of self-esteem and trust in people.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant asked for assistance of an attorney the day before the hearing in which she was to testify.
AP1 (Applicant): The evidence is in the file.
AP1 (Applicant): It was her mother who called the counseling center of autonomous woman house Zagreb, where she was aided as a victim of violence herself in the past.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant was then further connected with an attorney and another non-governmental organization, Center for Women Victims of War, ROSA.
AP1 (Applicant): The attorney was not provided by the respondent state as a free legal aid to the applicant, in this case, even the cases regarding fundamental values of democratic societies.
AP1 (Applicant): Nor did the government gave enough funds to finance NGO for their activities regarding trafficking.
AP1 (Applicant): Furthermore, as to the new information collected from NGOs, the government don't finance ROSA or any other NGO regarding trafficking for the last four years.
AP1 (Applicant): And this is the reason why the applicant asked for help from this court.
AP1 (Applicant): It is evident from the case file that applicants spoke with the Red Cross 10 days before the hearing.
AP1 (Applicant): This only meant that this help and support, which was being provided by the system and which is being highlighted in this case, was actually missing in the context of criminal proceeding and positive obligation.
AP1 (Applicant): It was the applicant mother who find her an attorney.
AP1 (Applicant): Through the Red Cross, the applicant was getting financial aid.
AP1 (Applicant): So despite all the conventions, strategic documents, and positive changes, despite 2012 European Union Victims Directive, the applicant was in effect left to her own capabilities and to the trusting relationship then she established with her attorney.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant asked for the assistance of the attorney because she was afraid to go to the court.
AP1 (Applicant): She didn't want to go to court, to the hearing alone.
AP1 (Applicant): She was unable to testify in the presence of TM, hadn't been consulted before, nor provided adequately support through the system.
AP1 (Applicant): It should be emphasized that the state attorney office is dominoes litis of a criminal proceeding in a respondent state, and that it is not reasonable to expect that the victim undertakes those actions that the police, the state attorney office, and the court are obliged to take by the law, regardless or not she have an attorney or not.
AP1 (Applicant): The attorney's activity is the activity of victim, and TM, by the facts from this case, was obsessed with the applicant.
AP1 (Applicant): According to the witness statement, she was afraid of him.
AP1 (Applicant): So the activity of the victim is her right, but not her duty.
AP1 (Applicant): Especially, this should be kept in mind if the victim is highly traumatized person who has been subjected to intensive inhuman treatment, involving severe forms of physical and psychological violence and humiliation in the intensity that changes the chemistry of her brain.
AP1 (Applicant): From victim of such conduct, also the applicant, it is not reasonable to expect active participation in a criminal proceeding, as well as from any other victim who has experienced interpersonal violence.
AP1 (Applicant): These victims tend to avoid anything that evokes memory of trauma, because these memories are painful, both emotionally and psychologically.
AP1 (Applicant): They often have enormous difficulty subsequently reconstructing the details of traumatic experience, and they demonstrate cognitive symptoms such as confusion and disorientation.
AP1 (Applicant): One should appreciate the courage of the applicant who testify in details about everything she has been through to the complete strangers three times, first before in the police, then in the state attorney office.
AP1 (Applicant): And then before the court, more than two hours each time, six hours in total.
AP1 (Applicant): The victim gave a precise and accurate referral of witnesses and description of the events.
AP1 (Applicant): These descriptions led to arrest and search the defendant.
AP1 (Applicant): During this search, the police found objects that can be brought in connection with trafficking of human beings and forced prostitution, different phones, an arsenal of weapon, and a large amount of condoms.
AP1 (Applicant): It is not the victim's duty to propose that police should conduct the search of these found phones, contact the persons in the directory and with whom the defendant has often come into contact, or try to determine the origin of seized weapon.
AP1 (Applicant): Such role of a victim in a pretrial proceeding is not possible under domestic law.
AP1 (Applicant): In a main hearing, it is not reasonable to expect the victim to take over the role of state attorney office and the court.
AP1 (Applicant): So the applicant points out that the state authorities have failed to subject this case to the careful consideration so that deterring impact of the criminal justice system wouldn't be questioned, as well as its role in preventing human rights violation.
AP1 (Applicant): Therefore, since the state authorities hadn't fulfilled their positive obligation, the applicant considers this court's first instance judgment to be fully justified.
AP1 (Applicant): She considered domestic legal mechanism effective to the point that constituting a violation of Article 4 of convention.
AP1 (Applicant): And third being regarding vulnerability of applicant.
AP1 (Applicant): This applicant and other victim of human trafficking for purposes of sexual exploitation are not so-called ideal victims, stable persons with a role model behavior in a previous life, who can clearly articulate their emotions, summarize the events, and reproduce all of that without any change over time.
AP1 (Applicant): When testifying, the applicant, as well as other victims of sexual exploitation and violence, often fail to be concise.
AP1 (Applicant): They stutter, seem confused, avoid issue, and sometimes in the cases of severe trauma, their emotional expression isn't compatible for what are they saying.
AP1 (Applicant): And sometimes they are incapable to testify.
AP1 (Applicant): Numerous psychological and medical studies have been written about how brain process trauma.
AP1 (Applicant): The amygdala, the part of the brain that plays a key role in recognizing, conditioning, and expressing fear, can experience changes.
AP1 (Applicant): The court failed to recognize these changes, failed to recognize the impact of trauma on the victim testimony.
AP1 (Applicant): At the time of sexual exploitation, the applicant was 20-year-old girl, twice her age, former special forces police officer who know her parents, her father for wartime, a manipulative, already convicted person with an arsenal of weapons.
AP1 (Applicant): She met him in the courtroom.
AP1 (Applicant): This courtroom, the defendant said, in this courtroom, the defendant sat behind the back of the victim at a distance of about one or two steps before he was brought out.
AP1 (Applicant): The victim was turned face towards to the court and could hear the sounds produced by the defendant without them being heard to other distant participant.
AP1 (Applicant): Or even some of them heard the sounds, they didn't mean anything to them.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant stated the above mentioned in the application.
AP1 (Applicant): The coherence of her statement did not only depend on survived trauma and the position of powerlessness that was exploited, but also on the structure of her personality, conditioned by birth, education, social conditions of life, et cetera.
AP1 (Applicant): The court did not carefully consider all these important circumstances, nor in the appeal procedure.
AP1 (Applicant): Fairly and carefully conducted court proceedings have importance not only in criminal justice sense.
AP1 (Applicant): They help in healing the consequences of survived trauma to the victims, because fairly and carefully executed procedures restore the victim's trust in the system and faith in humanity.
AP1 (Applicant): The frustration of this victim caused by the acquittal of defendant was enormous.
AP1 (Applicant): It should be kept in mind that the reasoning of acquittal clearly shows that the justice system did not believe the victim without having awareness or knowledge of the impact of trauma on her testimony.
AP1 (Applicant): So in conclusion, the applicant kindly asked the grand chamber that in the light of all the circumstances of this case, it's established a violation of Article 4, as this court already did.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant considered that this court has not gone beyond the scope of this case, because the fact statement and the legal arguments of the application, according to the adopted principles of the court, interfere with each other.
AP1 (Applicant): And according to the principle, jura novit curia, court gave a new characterization to the facts.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant considers that chamber judgment, according to which trafficking of human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation, as well the exploitation of prostitution, come within the scope of Article 4, is strong and very important in its effects.
AP1 (Applicant): Trafficking in human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation and exploitation of prostitution endanger human dignity and fundamental freedoms that are incompatible with the values of the Convention and the civilization progress regarding human rights, in a particular, human rights of women, which are disproportionately affected with these violations of law.
AP1 (Applicant): Raising awareness about the importance of women's human rights leads to full equality.
AP1 (Applicant): The Convention of Suspension of the Trafficking in Persons and the Exploitation of Prostitution of Others was adopted 70 years ago.
AP1 (Applicant): Numerous other conventions that aim at elimination of all forms of discrimination against women have normatively followed the set foundation, and the EU Charter incorporated them into their principle.
AP1 (Applicant): For the purpose of comparison, I would point out that in the same period of time, the 70 years, science has undergone enormous progress in almost every discipline.
AP1 (Applicant): As science progress on a daily basis, we must allow the practice in the field of human rights protection to do the same and reach its full potential.
AP1 (Applicant): In this sense, the court judgment in the case naturally leans on and further evolves the foundation established many years ago, which is the principle that human trafficking and exploitation of prostitution indeed treat human bodies as commodities.
AP1 (Applicant): With the existing judgment, the court once again showed that convention is a living instrument which must be interpreted in the light of present day conditions.
AP1 (Applicant): Thank you very much for your attention.
Angelika Nußberger (JudgeP): I call on Mrs. Stažnik.
GR2 (Government): Honorable Madam Vice President, honorable judges of the court, dear colleagues, I would like to begin with this pleading with acknowledgment that the trafficking in persons is a serious crime and a grave violation of human rights.
GR2 (Government): Every day, thousands of men, women, and children fall into the hands of traffickers in their own countries or abroad.
GR2 (Government): The Republic of Croatia is seriously dedicated to combat this modern day slavery.
GR2 (Government): It endorses the court's strong devotion to protect the rights of victims of this serious crime to the application of national laws and policies in the convention compliant manner while observing carefully the development of the court's case law, especially under Article IV of the convention.
GR2 (Government): The respondent state agrees with the statement that today's world of constant and widespread migration and globalization, the court should take the clear stance on the trafficking in human beings and define the scope of this issue in its case law.
GR2 (Government): So far, the court case law has defined the positive obligations of the member states under the Article IV but has not defined the substance of trafficking in human beings or the material aspect of Article IV of the convention.
GR2 (Government): However, the respondent state deems that circumstances of this particular case before the court are not suitable for the application of Article IV of the convention, neither for widening of its scope, and that is for several particular reasons.
GR2 (Government): Firstly, we should all bear in mind the scope of this particular case as it is defined in the present application to the court and by the single judge decision declaring part of it inadmissible before culminating into the respondent state.
GR2 (Government): Secondly, each complaint to the court should consist of two crucial elements, factual allegations and legal arguments.
GR2 (Government): The applicant is not only required to invoke a legal norm but also to indicate the factual basis of the complaint and the nature of the alleged violation which is connected to the name legal norm and to the right, the protection of which she is seeking before the court.
GR2 (Government): In her application to the court, the applicant did not raise any factual or any practical or legal issue under Article IV of the convention.
GR2 (Government): In fact, she barely made any complaint that is admissible under the convention in general and under the existing court's case law.
GR2 (Government): In her application, the applicant essentially complained about the outcome of the domestic criminal proceedings.
GR2 (Government): She did not ask for the application of Article IV, nor did she request the widening of the court's case law in any respect.
GR2 (Government): She did not object to the way the competent authorities conducted the investigation in the present case.
GR2 (Government): She did not object to the level of protection she received as a victim on domestic level.
GR2 (Government): She even did not object to the way the domestic criminal proceedings were conducted.
GR2 (Government): She simply objected their outcome.
GR2 (Government): The respondent state deems that there is no right under the convention which guarantees the conviction of a particular person in a criminal proceedings.
GR2 (Government): Such a claim doesn't trigger the application of any conventional rights, nor even the application of Article IV of the convention.
GR2 (Government): Just like national courts, the court has the obligation to protect the rule of law and to secure the proper administration of justice.
GR2 (Government): Ruling the decisions outside the scope of the case would not be in accordance with this rule.
GR2 (Government): According to the grand chamber established case law, it is of fundamental importance to rule within the scope of the case.
GR2 (Government): Because if the court were to base its decision on facts not covered by the complaint, it would rule beyond its competence and exceed its jurisdiction by deciding matters which were not referred to it within the meaning of Article 32 of the convention.
GR2 (Government): The respondent state strongly advocates that questions which may attract application of Article IV of the question were not referred to by the applicant in her application.
GR2 (Government): And therefore, they do not form the scope of the present case before the court.
GR2 (Government): The second reason why this case is not suitable for application of Article IV of the convention is that it lacks at least one of the crucial elements of trafficking in human beings.
GR2 (Government): The definition of trafficking in human beings, which is agreed among the states on international level, makes an integral part of the Anti-Trafficking Convention and the Palermo Protocol.
GR2 (Government): On the basis of the definition given therein, it is evident that trafficking in persons has three constituent elements.
GR2 (Government): First one relates to the act, the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons.
GR2 (Government): The second one relates to the means, threat, or use of force, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or vulnerability, or giving payments or benefits to a person in control of the victim.
GR2 (Government): And the third one that relates to the purpose, exploitation.
GR2 (Government): All of these elements have to be cumulatively fulfilled.
GR2 (Government): Consequently, there is no trafficking in human being if one of the crucial elements is missing.
GR2 (Government): In the present case, the national courts determined that the applicant was not coerced into prostitution, as there was not enough evidence to support this claim.
GR2 (Government): It was not proven beyond reasonable doubt that elements of coercion existed in the applicant's case.
GR2 (Government): These conclusions of domestic courts were not arbitrary or unfounded.