Fine breached beggar's human rights: Strasbourg Court

A street beggar with no work or social benefits for support had her human rights infringed when she was fined, and then detained for failure to pay the fine, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled.

In a unanimous chamber judgment (with partial dissents in respect of the reasoning) in the case of Lăcătuş v Switzerland, the Strasbourg court held that there had been a violation of article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the European Convention where the applicant was ordered to pay a fine of 500 Swiss francs for begging in public in Geneva, and her subsequent detention in a remand prison for five days.

The court observed that begging constituted a means of survival for the applicant, a Romanian national who was illiterate and came from an extremely poor family in the Roma community, had no work and was not in receipt of social benefits. Being in a clearly vulnerable situation, she had had the right, inherent in human dignity, to be able to convey her plight and attempt to meet her basic needs by begging.

Her penalty had not been proportionate either to the aim of combating organised crime or to the aim of protecting the rights of passers-by, residents and shopkeepers. The Court did not accept the Swiss Federal Court’s argument that less restrictive measures would not have achieved a comparable result: the penalty had infringed the applicant’s human dignity and impaired the very essence of the rights protected by article 8 of the Convention.

The case followed a series of lesser fines over a two year period against Ms Lăcătuş, each of which could be replaced by a one-day custodial sentence in the event of non-payment. Money found on her was also confiscated by the police.

The court considered that an outright ban on a certain type of conduct, in this case begging, was a radical measure which required strong justification and particularly rigorous scrutiny by the courts empowered to weigh up the various interests at stake. In the present case the applicable legislation had precluded a genuine balancing of the interests at stake, and penalised begging in blanket fashion.

A measure of this kind had to be justified by sound reasons in the public interest, which had not been present in this case. As to whether less stringent measures could have achieved a comparable result, a comparative survey of legislation on begging showed that the majority of Council of Europe member states imposed more nuanced restrictions. Even though the State had some margin of appreciation in that regard, compliance with article 8 required the domestic courts to examine thoroughly the particular situation in the case before them.

The penalty imposed had not been proportionate either to the aim of combating organised crime or to the aim of protecting the rights of passers-by, residents and shopkeepers. The applicant was an extremely vulnerable person who had been punished for her actions in a situation in which she had in all likelihood had no choice other than to beg in order to survive.

Switzerland was ordered to pay the applicant 922 euro in respect of non-pecuniary damage.

Click here to access the judgment, which is available only in French.