France was sanctioned this Thursday by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), after it severely condemned in 2018 a young woman who had denounced a situation of sexual harassment in the context of her work, by accusing him of “slanderous denunciation”.
In a ruling, the ECHR ordered Paris to pay 12,750 euros to Vanessa Allée, sanctioned on appeal in 2018 with a fine of 500 euros for “public defamation” against her hierarchical superior. The sentence was confirmed in 2019 by the Court of Cassation which ordered the payment of 2,500 euros for procedural costs.
In 2016, Madame Allée, secretary in a religious education association, denounced, in an email addressed to six people, including the labor inspector, a “sexual assault” as well as “sexual and moral harassment” of the from the executive vice-president of the association, recalls the CEDH in a press release. French justice considered that the accusations of sexual assault made by this resident of the Paris region, born in 1978, were not proven.
In its judgment, the ECHR argues that signatory states to the European Convention on Human Rights must “provide appropriate protection to people denouncing acts of moral or sexual harassment of which they consider themselves to be victims”. She emphasizes that “the acts denounced were committed without witnesses, and that the absence of a complaint relating to such actions cannot lead to characterizing (the) bad faith” of the complainant.
The national justice system thus “placed an excessive burden of proof on the applicant by requiring that she provide proof of the facts that she intended to denounce,” notes the court.