Ethnic profiling as a practice of systemic institutional discrimination

an analysis of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in Wa Baile v. Switzerland

Abstract

The use of racial profiling by state security forces in the exercise of their stop and search functions is a clearly discriminatory practice that involves the attribution of behaviours, situations or criminal tendencies to certain
minorities, who are phenotypically different from the social majority, on the basis of prejudice. Numerous international human rights bodies have ruled on this issue. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has had the opportunity to examine several cases on this issue, without reaching a conclusion until the Wa Baile vs. Switzerland judgment. The aim of the present text is therefore, firstly, to analyse what ethnic profiling by the police consists of and why it is a practice that should be considered as systemic racism of an institutional nature. Once this has been established, the material situation described in the judgment and the reasons that led to the condemnation will be analysed in order to critically examine whether there is a correspondence between the first part and the second part, and thus to evaluate the arguments put forward by the Strasbourg Court.