The European Court of Human Rights have sentenced the Portuguese State to pay €26,000 euros, plus €17,000 euros for costs and expenses, in the case of the disappearance of Rita Slof Monteiro, a schizophrenic 18 year old woman, over,16 years ago.
Rita, the daughter of Luis Gonçalves Monteiro and his partner, a Dutch woman with whom he lived at the time of the events, was reported missing by her mother on February 18th 2006, the day after her mother had dropped her at the Matosinhos market in Porto to catch the bus to the Parque de Serralves, also in Porto, for a study visit.
The PSP immediately launched a national appeal to security forces, and for the purpose of tracing, information regarding the girl's disappearance was transmitted to the Schengen Information System. A few days later, the Public Prosecutor's Office (MP), after communication from the Judiciary Police (PJ), opened a missing person investigation process and asked Rita's mobile phone operator to locate the young woman's phone, which the operator refused on the grounds that a court authorisation was required to proceed with this procedure.
Gonçalves Monteiro complained that the authorities did not carry out an urgent and effective search, citing Article 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights, considering that the Portuguese police and judicial authorities did not 'adequately protect the right to life, physical integrity and freedom.'
In 2009, three years after the young woman was reported missing, the father filed a lawsuit against the State Administrative and Tax Court (TAF) of Porto, and demanded €50,000 for material damages and €1,000,000 for moral damages. At the judgment in 2013, TAF ruled that the authorities had not failed in its obligations and dismissed all allegations of negligence.
The father never came to terms with the way the investigation was handled to discover his daughter's whereabouts. Sixteen years after Rita's disappearance, the European Court of Human Rights have now ruled that the delay in the investigation compromised the obtaining of evidence. In the decision now taken, the ECtHR considered that there was no violation of Article 2 (right to life) from a substantive point of view, but there was a violation of the Article from a procedural point of view. Thus, it ordered the Portuguese State to pay €43,0000 of which €17,000 is for legal costs and expenses.
