In the case Muhammad v. Spain, the applicant, Mr. Muhammad, a Pakistani citizen with long-term residency in Spain, complained that he had been requested to identify himself on the sole grounds of the color of his skin. More specifically, in May 2013 the applicant was walking on a public street in Barcelona with a friend when he was stopped by two police officers for an identity check. Believing that the police had approached him solely because of his race, Mr. Muhammad refused to show his documents and was therefore arrested; he was released following his identification at the police station. According to the police, the reason why the applicant was subjected to the check was different: the police officers stated that he had behaved disrespectfully toward them prior to the check.

 

In light of the above, Mr. Muhammad turned to the European Court of Human Rights, complaining not only that he had been subjected to racial discrimination in the context of an identity check in breach of Articles 8 (Right to respect for private and family life) and 14 (Prohibition of discrimination) ECHR, but also that his complaints had not been effectively examined by the Spanish courts.

The Court first addressed the admissibility of the case. It recalled that identity checks can constitute an interference with the right to respect the private life of those subjected to them. Nonetheless, not every identity check of a person belonging to an ethnic minority attains the necessary threshold of severity so as to fall within the scope of the right to private life. This threshold is only attained if the person concerned has an arguable claim that he or she has been targeted on account of specific physical or ethnic characteristics. With reference to the instant case, the Court noted that, according to the applicant’s statements, the check had been carried out solely because of the color of his skin; it could therefore be considered sufficient to affect his psychological integrity and ethnic identity for the purposes of Article 8 ECHR. Therefore, the Court held that the identity check in question fell within the scope of Article 8 ECHR and that, accordingly, Article 14 ECHR was also applicable.

Turning to the merits, the Court initially addressed the procedural issue raised by the applicant. First, it pointed out that racial discrimination is a very serious kind of discrimination and therefore requires “special vigilance” and “vigorous reaction” from national authorities, including in terms of a “special duty of investigation”. Consequently, in cases involving allegations of discriminatory identity checks on the basis of ethnicity – and as long as such acts fall into the ambit of Article 8 ECHR – national authorities have a duty under Article 14 ECHR to carry out effective and independent investigations. In this respect, the Court found nothing to reproach the Spanish authorities: they had complied with their duty to investigate, and Mr. Muhammad had been able to challenge the national courts’ decisions, which had been sufficiently reasoned and motivated.

On the substantive side, the Court considered whether the applicant had suffered discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity during the identity check. In this regard, Mr. Muhammad pointed out that no person belonging to the “majority Caucasian population” had been stopped and checked before, during or after his identity check. He also presented the judges with some statistical reports aimed at demonstrating that racially motivated identity checks are a pervasive practice of the Spanish police forces. However, the Court found these elements inadequate to prove the discriminatory matrix of the check suffered by the applicant.

It is also worth noting that Mr. Muhammad further stressed that the allegations of racial discrimination he made before the national authorities were supported by clear evidence, which should have resulted in the shift of the burden of proof to the Spanish government, a circumstance that did not occur. Citing its own precedents, the Court clarified that the burden of proof in discrimination cases always rests on the applicant; only when there is prima facie evidence of discrimination, it shifts to the Government, which must show that the discrimination was justified. The Court then noted that the evidence provided by Mr. Muhammad in support of his complaints was not sufficient to reverse the burden of proof at the domestic level.

 

All this being considered, the Court found that Mr. Muhammad had not suffered a racially motivated police identity check and therefore did not find a violation of Article 14 ECHR read in conjunction with Article 8 ECHR.

 

(Comment by Chiara Chisari)