ZINAIĆ proti Chorvatsku

FIRST SECTION

CASE OF ZINAIĆ v. CROATIA

(Application no. 35519/21)

JUDGMENT

STRASBOURG

5 February 2026

This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision.

In the case of Zinaić v. Croatia,

The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:

Frédéric Krenc, President,
Davor Derenčinović,
Alain Chablais, judges,
and Liv Tigerstedt, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to:

the application (no. 35519/21) against the Republic of Croatia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 5 July 2021 by a Croatian national, Mr Danijel Zinaić (“the applicant”), who was born in 1988, lives in Njivice and was represented by Mr V. Vladika, a lawyer practising in Rijeka;

the decision to give notice of the complaint concerning the right not to be tried or punished twice to the Croatian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent Ms Š. Stažnik, and to declare inadmissible the remainder of the application;

the parties’ observations;

Having deliberated in private on 15 January 2026,

Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

1. The case concerns the applicant’s allegation that he had been convicted of the same offence twice, first in minor-offence proceedings and then in criminal proceedings. It raises an issue under Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 to the Convention.

2. On 2 March 2017 the applicant was found guilty and fined 100 euros (EUR) in minor-offence proceedings of disturbing public peace and order contrary to section 6 of the Minor Offences against Public Order and Peace Act, inter alia, by shouting and hitting a person, M.P., with a fist in the head on 17 August 2015 in Omišalj so that the latter fell on the ground. The applicant lodged an objection against the penalty notice, which he subsequently withdrew so that the decision became final of 23 June 2018.

3. Meanwhile, M.P. brought private criminal prosecution against the applicant for inflicting bodily injury on him under Article 117 of the Criminal Code. Following the quashing of the first-instance court’s judgment, which had dismissed the charges for ne bis in idem, in the resumed proceedings, the Rijeka Municipal Court found the applicant guilty of causing bodily injury to M.P. by hitting him with a fist in the head on 17 August 2015 in Omišalj so that the latter fell on the ground, his two front teeth were knocked out and he got scratches on his left shoulder and left hip. The court sentenced the applicant to a four months’ suspended prison sentence. This judgment was upheld on appeal on 21 August 2020.

4. On 7 April 2021 the Constitutional Court declared the applicant’s constitutional complaint inadmissible as being manifestly ill-founded.

5. The applicant complained that he had been convicted twice of the same offence, contrary to Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 to the Convention.

THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT

6. The Court notes that this complaint is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention or inadmissible on any other ground. It must therefore be declared admissible.

7. The general principles concerning ne bis in idem have been summarized in A and B v. Norway [GC] (nos. 24130/11 and 29758/11, §§ 101-54, ECHR 2016).

8. The Court has already found a violation of the right not to be tried or punished twice for the same offence in almost identical circumstances in the case of Maresti v. Croatia (no. 55759/07, §§ 55-69, 25 June 2009; see also, for factual similarities, Urh v. Croatia [Committee], no. 60130/16, §§ 8-11, 13 January 2022). The Government submitted no convincing reason for the Court to reach a different conclusion in the present case.

9. In particular, bearing in mind that the physical attack on M.P. had constituted an element of the minor offence of which the applicant was found guilty, and that, in the criminal proceedings, he was again found guilty of, inter alia, hitting M.P., the Court considers that both decisions concerned exactly the same event and the same acts by the applicant so that the idem element is present (compare, Maresti, cited above, § 63). This is not altered by the fact that the criminal court also mentioned the details of the bodily injury inflicted on M.P. since these were the consequence of the same acts for which the applicant had already been convicted in the minor-offence proceedings.

10. Turning to the bis element, since the applicant was twice sanctioned for substantially the same facts, in this particular type of cases where the two sets of proceedings to a large extent concentrated on the same actions by the applicant, the Court cannot accept the Government’s contention that they pursued complementary purposes (contrast Bajčić v. Croatia, no. 67334/13, § 41, 8 October 2020).

11. Next, the Government argued that, by withdrawing his objection against the penalty notice issued in the minor-offence proceedings, the applicant sought to avoid criminal proceedings against him (see paragraph 2 above), which meant that criminal prosecution must have been foreseeable to him. While this may have been the applicant’s motivation for withdrawing his objection, the Court cannot but note that in their Action Report submitted to the Committee of Ministers in the framework of the execution of the Maresti judgment (available in document DH‑DD(2019)1377 of the Secretariat of the Committee of Ministers), the Government listed a number of legislative amendments and jurisprudential changes adopted in Croatia with a view to ensuring that the individual’s right not to be tried or punished twice were not violated in future similar cases. For that reason and bearing in mind the stark similarity between Maresti and the present case, the Court considers that it was not foreseeable for the applicant that he would be tried another time in criminal proceedings after the minor‑offence conviction against him had already become final and that his withdrawal of the objection in the latter set of proceedings was therefore immaterial to the present complaint.

12. Having reviewed the circumstances of the case as a whole, the Court considers that the two sets of proceedings cannot be said to have been sufficiently connected in substance, as required under the Court’s case‑law, to form part of an integral scheme of sanctions under Croatian law for hitting a person in a public space (see, mutatis mutandis, Milošević v. Croatia, no. 12022/16, § 42, 31 August 2021). On the contrary, having been punished twice for the same conduct, the applicant had in the Court’s view suffered disproportionate prejudice resulting from the duplication of proceedings and penalties, which did not form a coherent and proportionate whole in his case (see, mutatis mutandis, A and B v. Norway, cited above, §§ 112, 130 and 147).

13. In such circumstances, the Court finds it unnecessary to review whether the two sets of proceedings were sufficiently connected in time (see the relevant criteria set out in A and B v. Norway, cited above; see also Tsonyo Tsonev v. Bulgaria (no. 4), no. 35623/11, § 50, 6 April 2021).

14. There has accordingly been a violation of Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 to the Convention.

APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 41 OF THE CONVENTION

15. The applicant claimed a total of EUR 2,387.78 in respect of pecuniary damage, consisting of EUR 770 which he had paid as a fine in the minor‑offence proceedings and EUR 1,617.56 which he paid to M.P. as the private prosecutor on account of costs for the criminal proceedings. He also claimed EUR 5,000 in respect of non‑pecuniary damage. The Court does not discern any causal link between the violation found and the pecuniary damage alleged, it being noted that the applicant will be able to seek reopening of the criminal proceedings before the domestic courts; it therefore rejects this claim. Moreover, in the circumstances of the present case the Court considers that the finding of a violation of Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 to the Convention constitutes in itself sufficient just satisfaction for any non-pecuniary damage the applicant may have sustained (see Maresti, cited above, § 75).

16. The applicant also claimed EUR 3,750 in respect of costs and expenses incurred before the Constitutional Court and the Court. Having regard to the documents in its possession, the Court considers it reasonable to award the applicant EUR 2,500 under this head, plus any tax that may be chargeable to him.

FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT, UNANIMOUSLY,

1. Declares the application admissible;
2. Holds that there has been a violation of Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 to the Convention;
3. Holds that the finding of a violation constitutes in itself sufficient just satisfaction for any non-pecuniary damage sustained by the applicant;
4. Holds

(a) that the respondent State is to pay the applicant, within three months, EUR 2,500 (two thousand five hundred euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable to the applicant, in respect of costs and expenses;

(b) that from the expiry of the above-mentioned three months until settlement simple interest shall be payable on the above amount at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points;

5. Dismisses the remainder of the applicant’s claim for just satisfaction.

Done in English, and notified in writing on 5 February 2026, pursuant to Rule 77 §§ 2 and 3 of the Rules of Court.

Liv Tigerstedt Frédéric Krenc
Deputy Registrar President