FIRST SECTION
CASE OF KURUOVÁ AND HORVÁTHOVÁ v. SLOVAKIA
(Application no. 29229/22)
 
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
STRASBOURG
26 March 2026
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Kuruová and Horváthová v. Slovakia,
The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Frédéric Krenc, President,
 Davor Derenčinović,
 Alain Chablais, judges,
and Liv Tigerstedt, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 29229/22) against the Slovak Republic lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 7 June 2022 by two Slovak nationals, Ms Katarína Kuruová and Ms Helena Horváthová (“the applicants”), who were born in 1968 and 1979 respectively, live in Milhosť and were represented by the European Roma Rights Centre and Mr M. Zalesak, a lawyer practising in Bratislava;
the decision to give notice of the complaints concerning ill‑treatment by police officers and discrimination on the grounds of ethnic origin under Articles 3 and 14 of the Convention to the Slovak Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms M. Bálintová, and to declare the remainder of the application inadmissible;
the parties’ observations;
the decision to reject the Government’s objection to the examination of the application by a Committee;
Having deliberated in private on 5 March 2026,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The case concerns an incident between the applicants (two sisters of Roma origin) and the police, which took place on 23 July 2019 in front of the house of the first applicant, Ms Katarína Kuruová, in Milhosť and at a police station in Čaňa (villages in eastern Slovakia). 2. The incident was preceded by an altercation in the local pub involving the applicants’ relatives, which led to the relatives’ arrest. The applicants then went to the pub with a view to establishing why the situation had escalated to such an extent that the police had been called. After their arrival, the daughter of the second applicant, Ms Helena Horváthová, allegedly pushed another person and threw some objects on the floor. 3. A motorised police patrol from Košice subsequently arrived at the first applicant’s house, where both applicants were present. They were arrested and taken to the police station, where they were kept until their release in the early hours of the following day. No statements were taken from the applicants during that period. The arrest reports referred to them as “a bunch of local Roma women” (“tlupa miestnych Rómiek”). 4. According to the applicants, in the course of their arrest, police officers entered the yard of the first applicant’s house and the first applicant was grabbed by the hair, dragged onto the bridge, hit several times by one of the officers, and had her left hand twisted behind her back, forcing her to lean forward. The second applicant claimed to have been grabbed and pushed towards the bridge with what she understood to have been a baton, before being kicked in the back and slapped in the face. They also alleged that they had been verbally referred to as “gypsies” (“cigánky”) and “degenerates” (“degešky”). 5. According to the Government, the police officers did not use any coercive measures in respect of the applicants and the applicants did not have any injuries when they were arrested or while they were held at the police station. 6. In the afternoon of the day of their release, 24 July 2019, the applicants saw a doctor, who certified that they had suffered bodily injuries. In particular, the first applicant had a fracture of the middle joint of the fourth finger of her left hand, a contusion on the back of her neck and cervical spine, and a contusion on the left side of her chest, with an expected healing time of up to three weeks. With regard to the second applicant, she had contusions on the left side of her face, both sides of her jaw, her right shoulder, and around the lumbar region of her back (in particular on the right side), and had suffered distortion of the cervical spine, with an expected healing time of seven days. The doctor also noted that the injuries could have been inflicted as a result of ill‑treatment by the police officers, as stated by the applicants. 7. On 26 July 2019 the applicants initiated criminal proceedings against the police officers concerned for abuse of power. 8. On 30 April 2020 an expert concluded that the above‑mentioned injuries could have been caused by the applicants’ alleged ill‑treatment. They could likewise have been caused by an accidental fall, with both of those alternatives being equally probable. 9. On 13 August 2021, after the questioning of several witnesses, an identification parade in which the applicants identified the police officers allegedly involved in the incident, and a reconstruction of the events, an investigator of the Office of the Inspection Service suspended the investigation because no facts had been established on the basis of which to bring criminal charges. The applicants challenged that decision before the prosecutor’s office. 10. On 6 October 2021 the Košice Regional Prosecutor’s Office dismissed their complaint, endorsing the above‑mentioned findings. 11. On 20 January 2022 the Constitutional Court rejected the applicants’ complaint by decision no. II. ÚS 19/2022-17 for lack of jurisdiction in so far as the investigation had been temporarily suspended and no final decision to terminate the investigation had been taken. 12. The applicants complained under Articles 3 and 14 of the Convention.

Outcome for Article 3: violation