Legal Remedies for Victims of Unlawful Police Stops: European and Domestic Contexts (§ 6.2.2 The European Union Law; § 6.3.2 Italy),

Police stops, which may seem not too intrusive, especially if limited exclusively to identity checks, raise several important human rights issues, as well as ones relating to torts and administrative law. What is at stake is, of course, the right to personal liberty of the individual. Clearly, it should not be arbitrarily restricted, even if the time of the restriction is very limited. Moreover, as the ECtHR case law indicates, the right to privacy is another human right engaged by routine stops. Police stops, if used arbitrarily and excessively, may also endanger some other human rights and freedoms, such as freedom of assembly or speech. This chapter will analyse legal remedies accessible to the individual whose rights were allegedly violated during a police stop. The topic is approached from the international and national perspective. Section 6.2 is devoted to legal remedies accessible within the European system of human rights protection. The ECHR, as interpreted by the ECtHR and EU law, are discussed as crucial elements of this system. In Sect. 6.3, systems of legal remedies for unlawful police stops in four European jurisdictions—Hungary, Italy, Poland, and England and Wales—are discussed. Conclusions are presented in Sect. 6.4. Since the domestic systems, as well as to some extent the international law, offer various legal remedies to the victims of unlawful stops, the focus in this chapter is limited to the ones that have a crucial significance in identifying violations of the rights of the individual.