Information Note on the Court’s case-law 38

January 2002

Covezzi and Morselli v. Italy (dec.) - 52763/99

Decision 24.1.2002 [Section I]

Article 8

Article 8-1

Respect for family life

Parents deprived of all contact with their four children as a result of court decisions ordering placement of the children in four different homes: admissible

Article 6

Civil proceedings

Article 6-1

Access to court

Prolonged impossi bility of obtaining a final court decision in respect of placement of children: admissible

Article 34

Victim

Locus standi of applicants whose parental rights have been suspended, in respect of an application purportedly also on behalf of their children

The applicants are a married couple who have four minor children. One of their children’s cousins gave a statement to the public prosecutor alleging that she, her brother and her cousins had been subjected to sexual abuse by her parents and other adults, i ncluding the applicants’ parents. In November 1998, without hearing evidence from the applicants, the youth court found that the applicants had neglected their parental duties by failing to notice that their children had been subjected to repeated sexual a buse and by continuing to let them stay with their grandparents. Consequently, it ordered the removal of the children from the family home and suspended the applicants’ parental rights, vesting them in the social-services department. All contact with the c hildren was suspended “until such time as the parents’ protective role had been reinstated”. The applicants were not informed where the children had been placed. They subsequently learned that they had been put in four different children’s homes. At the be ginning of 1999 supervised contact between the applicants and their children took place and there were meetings with the social services. In March 1999 a psychologist confirmed in a report that the applicants’ children had been victims of sexual abuse. The applicants were then heard by the youth court in conditions which they said were highly unfavourable. The youth court then ordered an expert report on their personalities, their fitness to exercise parental authority and their relations with their childre n. The applicants unsuccessfully challenged the care order and the psychologist’s report. They also made applications for the children to be put in the care of another local authority and placed together in the same home and for the right to visit their ch ildren, but they were dismissed. In the meantime, one of the children stated that he had been subjected to sexual abuse by Mr Covezzi, with Ms Morselli’s complicity. Investigations were consequently started into the allegation against the applicants. In Oc tober 1999 the public prosecutor obtained an extension of time until April 2000 in which to conduct the preliminary investigation. In March 2001 the applicants were committed to stand trial. Their requests for the children to be placed in the same home wer e dismissed by the youth court. The applicants also requested that a final decision be taken regarding their children’s position. Their appeal against the youth court’s decision of December 1999 rejecting their application was declared inadmissible on the ground that it was a provisional, urgent measure against which there was no right of appeal. By a decree issued in 2000 the youth court declared that the applicants’ parental authority had lapsed. Their appeal was dismissed. In September 2000 the youth cou rt issued an order prohibiting the applicants from sending anything to the children. At the date this decision was adopted, the case had not been decided on the merits.

Admissible under Articles 6 § 1, 8 and 13: Government’s preliminary objection under Art icle 34 – at the time the application was made the applicants’ parental authority was merely suspended (they had not lost it altogether until a later date) such that, in accordance with the Scozzari and Giunta v. Italy precedent, the applicants could, as the natural parents, claim to act before the Court on behalf of their children as well as on their own behalf. Indeed, it was precisely because the case had not yet been decided on the merits that the possibility that th e applicants also had vested in them their children’s own interests could not be excluded beforehand: objection dismissed.

© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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