THIRD SECTION
CASE OF STALOVIĆ v. SERBIA
(Application no. 35786/22)
 
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
STRASBOURG
17 February 2026
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Stalović v. Serbia,
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Darian Pavli, President,
 Úna Ní Raifeartaigh,
 Mateja Đurović, judges,
and Olga Chernishova, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 35786/22) against the Republic of Serbia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 11 July 2022 by Mr Marko Stalović, a Serbian national, and Ms Sandra Stalović, an Austrian national (“the applicants”), who were born in 1992 and 1991 respectively, live in Belgrade and Vienna and were represented by Mr D. Jovanović, the director of the European Roma Rights Centre, a non-governmental organisation based in Brussels, who was granted leave to represent the applicants before the Court (Rule 36 §§ 2 and 4 (a)) of the Rules of Court);
the decision to give notice of the complaints concerning alleged ill‑treatment by police to the Serbian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms Z. Jadrijević Mladar, and to declare inadmissible the remainder of the application;
the parties’ observations;
the decision of the Austrian Government not to exercise their right to intervene in the proceedings, under Article 36 § 1 of the Convention;
Having deliberated in private on 27 January 2026,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The case concerns racially motivated police ill-treatment and the lack of an effective investigation in that respect. 2. The applicants are a married couple. The first applicant is of Roma origin. On 21 April 2017 they reported a car theft to the Mladenovac Police Station (hereafter “Mladenovac Station”) stating that their passports had been left inside the car. They were then subjected to a polygraph test and “informal” questioning at the Belgrade Police Directorate. No minutes of those interviews were made. According to the applicants, they were taken to two separate rooms. The first applicant alleged being forced to kneel, slapped, kicked in the stomach, and struck with a leather whip on the upper side of his hands. He further claimed that he had been suffocated with a plastic bag, threatened with shooting and electrocution, insulted (“Gypsy mother”), and warned his children would be placed in care. The second applicant alleged threats of detention, accusations of being “the mask of an organised criminal group,” racist insults (“white woman with a black man”, “Shqiptar in disguise”), and threats to take her children. 3. The applicants were returned to Mladenovac Station where they gave formal statements concerning their complaint and signed the minutes, according to which the interviews ended at 9.30 p.m. on 21 April 2017. They were signed by the applicants and state that they had no remarks, and that the first applicant had no complaints concerning treatment by police officers in Mladenovac and Belgrade. 4. The first applicant underwent medical examination at the Mladenovac Health Centre at 10.35 p.m. He claimed that he had been beaten by police officers at Belgrade Police Directorate. The medical report stated that his identity had been confirmed by his father because he had no identity documents. The doctor documented several head injuries, red spots near the left kidney region and a pressure mark on his right knee and reported everything to the police. Another examination the next day revealed multiple head injuries and muscle pain along the neck and back. On 26 April 2017 the first applicant was diagnosed with PTSD attributed to the alleged incident. 5. On 9 May 2017 the applicants lodged a criminal complaint against eight police officers and claimed that they had been ill-treated because of the first applicant’s Roma origin. The First Public Prosecutor’s Office of First Instance in Belgrade instructed the Department for the Control of Lawfulness of the Police (hereafter “the Control Department”) to gather information. Five police officers involved in the incident were questioned by 31 August 2017, while the applicants were heard on 8 December 2017. 6. The police officers claimed that the applicants had been informally questioned after the polygraph procedure, but denied allegations of ill‑treatment. It is clear from the case file that other police officers who had been present during some parts of the questioning were not interviewed. The first applicant reiterated his complaints. As for the fact that he had signed the minutes of his questioning he claimed that he had not been informed about what he had been signing. The second applicant claimed that she had been subjected to psychological ill-treatment while at the Belgrade Police Directorate. Following a question, she claimed that she had not given a statement at the Belgrade Police Directorate, but only at the Mladenovac Station. 7. On 17 May 2018 the Prosecutor’s Office of first-instance rejected the criminal complaint, accepting the police officers’ statements and noting that the first applicant had signed the minutes without making any complaints. The prosecutor also referred to CCTV footage from the Mladenovac Station, made on the day of the incident, showing the applicants leaving the station without any visible injuries. The first medical report was disregarded as it was impossible to determine that it had concerned the first applicant because he had no identification documents. The second medical report was disregarded because it was made the day after the alleged ill-treatment and the photographs of injuries made by the first applicant because they were not dated. The second applicant’s complaint of psychological ill-treatment was not addressed. On 29 August 2018, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Second Instance in Belgrade upheld the decision. 8. On 1 August 2017, while the criminal investigation was pending, the applicants lodged a discrimination claim against the State. On 1 June 2020 the Belgrade Court of Second Instance allowed the claim and awarded the first applicant 4,700 euros (‘EUR’) in non-pecuniary damages because of the suffered discrimination, physical pain and fear, and the second applicant EUR 1,700 because of the suffered discrimination and fear. It was established that police officers applied unjustified physical and psychological pressure, as described in paragraph 2 above, amounting to degrading treatment. As the damage was caused by unlawful conduct of a state organ, the defendant was obliged to compensate it regardless of the rejection of the criminal complaint against individual police officers. It was also held that the applicants had made a credible claim that the conduct of the police officers was motivated, at least in part, by the first applicant’s Roma origin and the second applicant’s marriage to him and that the defendant failed to disprove it. The decision was also based on two expert medical opinions stating that the applicants suffered fear because of that conduct, and that the first applicant also suffered physical pain. On 17 December 2020, the Belgrade Court of Appeal upheld that judgment and it became final. The applicants did not challenge the amounts awarded on appeal. 9. On 28 October 2021, the Constitutional Court dismissed the applicants’ constitutional appeal against the decisions to reject their criminal complaint. It found that the investigation had been adequate, thorough, and prompt. It noted that the Control Department was hierarchically superior to the officers under investigation and thus independent. Based on CCTV footage, it found that the applicants had left the Mladenovac Station at 9 p.m. on 21 April 2017, that the first applicant had been examined by a doctor about 1.5 hours later, and that there had been no evidence his injuries could not have occurred after leaving the station. It concluded that his allegations were unsupported by medical evidence and that he initially had no complaints about police treatment (see paragraph 3 above). The second applicant’s appeal was dismissed on the basis of her own statement that she had not given any statement at the Belgrade Police Directorate on 21 April 2017 (see paragraph 6 above). Regarding the allegation of ill-treatment based on Roma origin, it held that the prohibition of discrimination is accessory and cannot be breached unless another constitutional right has first been violated.

Article of the Convention at issue: Article 3
Outcome: violation