Opuz v. Turkey

Opuz is the case in which the Court established that State failures to protect women from violence can violate the right to non-discrimination, enshrined in Article 14. Turkeys failure to set up a system to protect domestic violence victims and punish offenders was also found to violate the rights to life (Article 2) and freedom from degrading or inhuman treatment (Article 3). Opuz alleged that State authorities had failed to protect her and her mother from domestic violence at the hands of her husband, which led to the infliction of life-threatening injuries on the complainant and to the death of her mother. Several complaints had been filed over the course of seven years, with no action by the authorities. It was only when Opuzs mother was murdered that her husband was arrested, though he was released pending his appeal, and continued to threaten Opuz. The States failures in this case were recognized to be systemic, as the Turkish legal system did not offer many of the measures generally used to protect victims of domestic violence.