22 JALLOH v. GERMANY JUDGMENT nasogastric tube to administer emetics by force entails serious risks to life and limb and should therefore be prohibited. The Court is not satisfied that the forcible administration of emetics, a procedure that has to date resulted in the deaths of two people in the respondent State, entails merely negligible health risks. It also observes in this respect that the actual use of force – as opposed to the mere threat of force – has been found to be necessary in the respondent State in only a small proportion of the cases in which emetics have been administered. However, the fatalities occurred in cases in which force was used. Furthermore, the fact that in the majority of the German Länder and in at least a large majority of the other member States of the Council of Europe the authorities refrain from forcibly administering emetics does tend to suggest that such a measure is considered to pose health risks. 79. As to the manner in which the emetics were administered, the Court notes that, after refusing to take the emetics voluntarily, the applicant was pinned down by four police officers, which shows that force verging on brutality was used against him. A tube was then fed through his nose into his stomach to overcome his physical and mental resistance. This must have caused him pain and anxiety. He was subjected to a further bodily intrusion against his will through the injection of another emetic. Account must also be taken of the applicant’s mental suffering while he waited for the emetics to take effect. During this time he was restrained and kept under observation by police officers and a doctor. Being forced to regurgitate under these conditions must have been humiliating for him. The Court does not share the Government’s view that waiting for the drugs to pass through his body naturally would have been just as humiliating. Although it would have entailed some invasion of privacy because of the need for supervision, such a measure nevertheless involves a natural bodily function and so causes considerably less interference with a person’s physical and mental integrity than forcible medical intervention (see, mutatis mutandis, Peters, cited above, and Schmidt, cited above). 80. As regards the medical supervision of the administration of the emetics, the Court notes that the impugned measure was carried out by a doctor in a hospital. In addition, after the measure was executed the applicant was examined by a doctor and declared fit for detention. However, it is a matter of dispute between the parties whether an anamnesis of the applicant was obtained prior to the execution of the measure in order to ascertain whether his health might be at risk if emetics were administered to him against his will. Since the applicant violently resisted the administration of the emetics and spoke no German and only broken English, the assumption must be that he was either unable or unwilling to answer any questions that were put by the doctor or to submit to a prior medical examination. The Government have not submitted any documentary or other evidence to show otherwise.

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