Human rights farce after Euro judges award £6,000 payout to victim of playground fight over a football in Croatia TEN YEARS AGO

  • Croatian playground row dates back to 2003 when the victim was 13-years-old
  • Croatian courts dropped the case but it was taken up by Court of Human Rights
  • Court ruled his rights were breached when another boy's father snatched the ball from him

It was intended to prevent major abuses of human rights such as torture and extra-judicial killing.

But yesterday the European Court of Human Rights was ridiculed when it ruled - on a playground fight over a football.

The incident involved a thirteen-year-old boy from Croatia who got into a row with another boy nearly a decade ago over who was the rightful owner of the ball.

European Court of Human Rights

Ridiculous: The European Court of Human Rights in the French eastern city of Strasbourg ruled yesterday on a playground argument over a football dating back a decade

The alleged victim claimed the second boy's father had taken the ball away, pulled his T-shirt and slapped and kicked him.

He claimed the incident had caused him 'significant distress' and that the 'memories of the attack would remain with him until the end of his life'.

Yesterday, two years after the application was first made, seven judges of the Strasbourg Court ruled his rights had been breached and awarded him compensation of more than £6000.

 The court, which is supported by British taxpayers' money, has around 160,000 cases on its books.

This year, the judges asked member states including Britain to hand over yet more money to help it deal with the caseload.

The backlog means delays of years to deal with important cases such as that of terror preacher Abu Qatada.

Britain already contributes £20million a year to the Council of Europe, the body which runs the Strasbourg Court.

Critics say the court should focus on important cases involving serious human rights issues instead of involving itself in minor incidents, and infringing on Parliamentary sovereignty on issues such as prisoner votes.

Last night former police minister Nick Herbert said: ‘This is a court that continuously overreaches itself, dealing with matters that do not relate to fundamental human rights and could perfectly well be left to domestic courts.

Judges at the European Court of Human Rights

Rule of law: Judges at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg awarded the victim more than £6,000 despite Croatian courts previously dropping the case (file picture of Strasbourg court)

‘For so long as this goes on human rights will continue to be devalued in the eyes of the public which is a tragedy.’

In October, the court ruled in favour of a Serbian woman who complained about her leaky roof. It accepted the case despite the roof having been fixed five years ago.

Sixty-five year-old Milja Bjelajac, from the Serbian city of Novi Sad complained that her rights had been infringed because her loft apartment had not been fixed promptly by local housing officers.

The latest case involves a boy called Tomislav Remetin who, in April 2003, was thirteen years old and playing with three friends in a school playground in Dubrovnik.

He claimed he found the ball in the playground, but another boy approached him and asked for the ball back, claiming it was his. Tomislav refused.

Later, Tomislav alleged, the second boy's father arrived, grabbed him by his t-shirt and kicked and hit him, before taking the ball away.

Former police minister Nick Herbert

Criticism: Former police minister Nick Herbert (pictured) said the court continuously overreaches itself, dealing with matters that do not relate to fundamental human rights

The man denied having attacked the boy and police abandoned the case claiming there was insufficient evidence.  

The case spent several years in the Croatian courts system following several appeals, a trial and retrial, but was eventually dropped.

A civil claim also failed in 2009 and the following year the alleged victim applied to Strasbourg.

The Croatian government said the case had been dismissed because too much time had elapsed before it reached court.

But the Strasbourg court, in a 20 page judgment, ruled that Tomislav's rights under Article 8, the right to a private and family life, had been breached, because the case should not have been ruled out of time.

They awarded him 7,500 euros in damages.

Last month Justice Secretary Chris Grayling said there was an 'urgent need' for reform of the court which had taken on cases far beyond its original remit.

He told a committee of MPs: 'The fundamental problem here is that the European Court of Human Rights has moved a long way from the views of the originators of the conventions back in the 1950s.

'The original European convention on human rights was a laudable document written by conservatives after the holocaust, when Stalin was in power in Russia and people were being sent to the gulags without trial.

'Over the period since then, the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights has, in my view, moved further and further away from the original intention and purpose of that convention.'