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V.C.L. and A.N. v. The United Kingdom (applications nos. 77587/12 and 74603/12)
The Court held that once the authorities had become aware of a credible suspicion that
an individual had been trafficked, he or she should be assessed by a qualified person. Any decision to
prosecute should follow such an assessment, and while the decision would not necessarily be
binding on a prosecutor, the prosecutor would need to have clear reasons for reaching a different
conclusion. In the case of both V.C.L. and A.N., the Court found that despite the existence of credible
suspicion that they had been trafficked, neither the police nor the prosecution service had referred
them to a competent authority for assessment; although both cases were subsequently reviewed by
the prosecution service, it disagreed with the conclusion of the competent authority without giving
clear reasons capable of undermining the competent authority’s conclusions; and the Court of
Appeal limited itself to addressing whether the decision to prosecute had been an abuse of process.
The Court therefore found that there had been a violation of Article 4 in both applicants’ cases.
The Court found that, although the authorities had made some accommodations to the applicants
after their guilty verdicts, the lack of any assessment of whether the applicants had been victims of
trafficking may have prevented them from securing important evidence capable of helping their
defence. As such the proceedings had not been fair, leading to a violation of Article 6 § 1.
16 February 2021
| Judicial Body: Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights
| Legal Instrument: 1950 European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)
| Topic(s):
Survivors of trafficking / Persons at risk of trafficking
- Trafficking in persons
| Countries:
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- Viet Nam
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