Skendžić and Krznarić v. Croatia | 2011

Justice for the families of victims of war crimes and disappearances from the conflict in Croatia

...the shortcomings in the inquiry into the disappearance of M.S. regarding its effectiveness and the lack of independence of the authorities involved failed to comply with the requirements of Article 2 of the Convention [the right to life].

Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, April 2011

Background

Josipa Skendžić’s husband went missing during Croatia’s “Homeland War”. Her family—like countless others—never got the full truth about what happened.

On 3 November 1991, police arrested father-of-two ‘M.S.’ at the family home. He disappeared in custody after being taken to a nearby town.

His family claimed that other people of Serbian ethnic origin, like M.S., had gone missing or been killed near the town around the same time.

In the days after her husband’s arrest, Josipa made countless calls to the authorities, trying to find out what had happened to him. She fell into utter despair, turning to pills to dull the pain of getting no answers.

Josipa’s daughter, Tamara, was six when her dad disappeared. She remembered crying all the time. Her brother, Aleksandar, described the period as “horrible in which [I] cannot remember a single nice moment.”

Years passed with no news.

In 1998, a Croatian court presumed M.S. dead.

The following year, Josipa demanded that an official investigation be carried out. Initially she heard nothing, but the authorities later ordered police to conduct interviews, including with officers involved in her husband’s arrest.

But Josipa thought the police were not doing enough to find out the truth.

In 2005, she and her children won a civil lawsuit against the state, with a Croatian court acknowledging that the authorities were responsible for M.S.’s disappearance and presumed death. The family got compensation.

However, the authorities told Josipa the same year that they had not yet found those responsible for her husband’s disappearance.

Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights

The European court ruled that Croatia failed to carry out an effective and independent investigation into M.S.’s disappearance.

The investigation was plagued by inexplicable delays and there were no serious attempts to follow up leads, the court said.

In the court’s view, the fact that the initial investigation had been carried out by the same police station which had been involved in M.S.’s arrest produced “an obvious conflict of interests and lack of independence of the investigating authorities.”

Follow-up

In response to the European court’s judgment in Josipa Skendžić and her children’s case, the Croatian authorities redoubled their efforts to find out what had happened to the family's loved one. Officials transferred the investigation away from the local authorities to another body – a move which the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers welcomed.

Following this, investigators uncovered new leads in 2017-18.

Croatia also took a wide range of steps aimed at making sure that allegations of war crimes are properly investigated, and at intensifying the search for missing persons, including:

A 2011 strategy for the investigation and prosecution of war crimes, aimed at improving the overall effectiveness of proceedings. The strategy involved setting up a comprehensive war crimes database.
A 2011 governmental note to investigating authorities, emphasising the importance of non-discrimination relating to the ethnicity of perpetrators and victims in war crimes investigations.
Changes to the Criminal Procedure Code in 2013, transferring investigations from police to prosecutors, thereby improving oversight and helping to avoid delays. The changes also made sure that victims’ families are properly involved in and informed about investigations.
Changes to the law in 2014 to stop police units investigating war crimes when their own officers are alleged to have been involved. Such investigations are now transferred to a different police unit.
A 2019 Act on Missing Persons in the Homeland War aimed at protecting victims’ families and providing an effective legal framework for the search, exhumation and identification of people who disappeared.

Additional information

Themes:

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