Kateřina Šimáčková is the first woman to represent the Czech Republic at the European Court of Human Rights. What reactions did she encounter in Strasbourg when the Senate did not approve the Istanbul Convention? And what judgments against the Czech Republic have already been pronounced there?
Kateřina Šimáčková has been a judge of the European Court of Human Rights since December 2021, and as she says in an interview that is part of the List of News Gallery of Personalities project, since then she and her colleagues have had to deal with several cases where a specific citizen sued the Czech Republic.
“We’ve had a number of judgments which show that we have a bit of a problem with the investigation of police violence and the care of people with psychosocial disabilities in psychiatric hospitals. We issued three decisions in which we criticized the Czech Republic and decided that it had violated the rights of the complainants in these matters.”
As one of the examples, Kateřina Šimáčková cites the case called “V. against the Czech Republic” (the initial in official communication replaces the surname of a specific plaintiff). The case ended with a verdict that the Czech Republic violated the right to life in the case of one psychiatric patient.
“It was that the mental hospital was not equipped enough and the patient who had an attack of aggression there – predictable because it matched his diagnosis – was not staffed enough and there was not enough equipment to have a separate room in which he and others around him were protected him. That’s why they called the police to intervene, which in itself is not the most reasonable solution. The police tasered him three times (electrical stun gun, editor’s note)“, Kateřina Šimáčková describes the case.
“IN. against the Czech Republic”
The case concerned a patient who was treated for long-term paranoid schizophrenia. In 2015, he was hospitalized at Olomouc psychiatry during an oncoming attack of the disease. Because of his aggressive behavior, when he demolished the clinic’s equipment and caused serious injuries to the paramedics, the hospital staff called the police. She used a taser against the patient three times, and the paramedics subsequently administered sedatives. The patient died shortly thereafter.
The police procedure was investigated by the General Inspectorate of the Security Forces, which postponed the case. The patient’s relatives did not succeed in the Czech courts either. Last December, however, the Strasbourg court found some systemic deficiencies in the handling of similar situations in its judgment. And he stated that when the police intervened against a mentally ill patient, there was a violation of the right to life.
The European Court therefore called on the Czech Republic to eliminate the systemic errors that were evident in the case, including that police officers be adequately trained on the health consequences of Taser use.
“We are in communication with both the committee of ministers and the Czech representatives, so I believe that this will mean consideration of some systemic changes. The Czech state takes a very constructive approach to this,” says Šimáčková.
Photo: Michal Šula, Seznam Zpravy
Knight of the Legion of Honor. “Maybe the French government decided to put more emphasis on women and the protection of human rights, and that’s why they gave me this.”
What is our problem in the Czech Republic?
In the interview, Kateřina Šimáčková also returns to the January decision of the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, which refused to ratify the Convention of the Council of Europe on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, known as the Istanbul Convention. Approval in the Parliament was a necessary step for the convention to come into force – after the Czech Republic signed it in 2016.
“My colleagues at the meeting say to me: What is your problem in the Czech Republic if you don’t want to approve it? What bothers you? I usually say that I just don’t know. I shouldn’t comment on that. But I’m sorry,” says Kateřina Šimáčková.
The convention, which, among other things, emphasizes the readiness of states to provide full legal protection to victims of violence, including children who live in the families of tyrants, met the concerns of some senators in the Czech Parliament. For example, they were afraid of the “imposition of gender ideology” or that the state would deviate from the standard concept of the role of men and women in the family, or that non-governmental organizations would claim financial contributions for fulfilling the convention.
What does the Istanbul Convention contain?
In its full name, the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence calls for the elimination of discrimination and inequality and fights against:
- domestic violence, sexual violence, violence against women
- genital mutilation, “honor” killings
- forced abortions, forced marriages, forced sterilization
“I found those arguments quite irrational,” says Šimáčková. “I don’t know if we as a state provide comprehensive protection to victims, if we take it seriously. It is also aimed at more subtle areas, such as prevention: providing much more social services, paying much more attention to it, paying attention, for example, to children at school if they do not show signs that indicate that they are witnesses of domestic violence…,” lists Šimáčková , to which most of the European countries that have ratified the convention have committed themselves.
According to her, the fact that the Czech Republic, like Bulgaria, where domestic violence is a big problem, has not brought the treaty into force is not good news: “The fact that the state has not ratified the convention will be perceived by the European Court of Human Rights as a signal that the state is not prepared to provide full legal protection for victims.”
At the same time, Kateřina Šimáčková does not want to predict how a specific individual’s lawsuit against the Czech Republic due to insufficient protection would turn out in the European Court.
“The Legion of Honor? Chance!”
Throughout her career, Kateřina Šimáčková has focused on the protection of human rights. In the interview, she recalls that her psychiatrist mother made her study law in the 1980s.
“My mom told me then: ‘Being a doctor or a lawyer is a profession where you can help people. And my patients have an awful lot of legal problems. So there would be a need in our family for someone to deal with the legal problems of people with psychosocial disabilities.'”
Photo: Michal Šula, Seznam Zpravy
Kateřina Šimáčková and Jiří Kubík filming an interview in the Seznam Zpráv studio.
Kateřina Šimáčková worked as a lawyer, a judge of the Supreme Administrative Court, and from 2013 she was a judge of the Constitutional Court. And two and a half years ago, she was chosen – for nine years – as the Czech representative at the European Court of Human Rights.
A year before that, she received the Order of the Legion of Honor, the rank of knight, from French President Emmanuel Macron. “I don’t really value those awards,” says Kateřina Šimáčková surprisingly. “I think it’s mostly a coincidence. Maybe the French government decided to put more emphasis on women and the protection of human rights, and that was the reason why they granted it to me. Anna Šabatová won it before me (former ombudsman, editor’s note). Therefore, I think they have found a profile that they want to support in Central and Eastern Europe.”
It means much more to her that she is the first woman representing the Czech state at the court in Strasbourg: “It means responsibility, work and fulfilling one of my life’s tasks: to inspire young lawyers and show them that everything is possible.” That’s why I value it the most.”
What is the source of her belief that “men’s law” applies in the Czech Republic and that higher positions in the judiciary are a closed men’s club? What is she not allowed to talk about as a judge? And how do representatives of states with different laws and traditions seek agreement on the unions of same-sex couples at the European Court?
You can listen to the interview with Kateřina Šimáčková already in the audio version at the beginning of the article – we will publish the transcript and video recording of the entire interview on Saturday.
