Published on 31 March 2025
 
FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 5855/25
Marianne Søndenbroe KLEIN
against Denmark
lodged on 10 February 2025
communicated on 14 March 2025
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The applicant’s adult daughter was confined to a restraint bed in a psychiatric hospital from 17 January 2020 at 9 p.m. to 19 January 2020 at 11.10 a.m. Having fled from the hospital, she died on 20 January 2020.
The applicant complained about the confinement to the Psychiatric Patients’ Complaints Board, which on 29 January 2021 found the confinement unlawful, since it had not been approved by a consultant.
Relying on Articles 3, 6, 13 and 14 of the Convention, the applicant brought compensation proceedings against the Region responsible for the psychiatric hospital before the courts under chapter 43a of the Administration of Justice Act (a provision granting a range of procedural guarantees to patients seeking judicial review of administrative deprivation of liberty). By a judgment of 9 April 2024, which became final on 10 October 2024, the High Court dismissed the applicant’s case as being outside the scope of chapter 43a of the Administration of Justice Act since there was no dispute about the lawfulness of the confinement at issue. The applicant therefore had to lodge her compensation claim in ordinary civil proceedings.
Before the Court the applicant complains about the confinement and maintains that she was discriminated against procedurally. She invokes Articles 3, 6, 13 and 14 of the Convention.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1.  Was the High Court’s judgment of 9 April 2024 in breach of Articles 3, 5, 6, 8, or 13 of the Convention?
 
2. Has the applicant suffered discrimination contrary to Article 14 of the Convention, read in conjunction with Articles 3, 5, 6, 8 or 13 of the Convention, compared to other psychiatric patients whose complaints to the Psychiatric Patients’ Complaints Board were unsuccessful, and whose claims for compensation therefore fell within the scope of chapter 43a of the Administration of Justice Act?