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The European Court of Human Rights made decision on the case N.O. v. Georgia, and held that there has been a violation of Article 2 of the Convention under its procedural limb.

The case refers to the death of E.N, 24-years-old daughter of the application, who was found dead in the house of her husband on October 18, 2017. Although the investigation started under the article on bringing a person to the point of suicide, the investigation did not finish. Irrespective many important circumstances and irrelevances in the case, the law enforcement bodies could not identify alleged perpetrator/s. 

On January 28, 2019, with the legal aid of Human Rights Center, the mother of the deceased young woman N.O. sent application to the European Court of Human Rights, where she claimed that the State of Georgia had violated Article 2 (right to life) and Article 3 (prohibition of torture) of the European Convention on Human Rights in relation with the Article 13 of the Convention (right to effective remedy). 

The European Court of Human Rights observed that the investigative authority failed to explore adequately all credible lines of inquiry and  there has been a significant period of unexplained inactivity fully attributable to that authority’s conduct; the consequent expiry of the limitation period has already stripped the continuing investigation of any possible utility and therefore of any potential effectiveness.  The manifest failure to conduct the investigation at an appropriate pace, which cannot be justified either by its complexity or any other objective difficulties, and the lack of due diligence in addressing a number of important questions, clearly does not comply with the requirement for the domestic authorities to display particular diligence and vigour when investigating cases involving violence against women. This can even be read as sheer unwillingness on the part of the investigative authority to establish the truth surrounding E.N.’s death. The foregoing considerations are sufficient to enable the Court to find that the authorities failed to conduct an effective investigation in the present case.