Information Note on the Court’s case-law 12

November 1999

E.P. v. Italy - 31127/96

Judgment 16.11.1999 [Section II]

Article 8

Article 8-1

Respect for family life

Relationship between a mother and her daughter severed by judicial decision: violation

Facts : The applicant, a nurse, lived with her daughter in Greece from the latter’s birth until 1988. She appears to have at all times been extremely concerned for t he health of her daughters, who had to be hospitalised several times. In 1988 the applicant abruptly left Greece with her daughter, who was still very young, for Italy, where members of her family were living. The child, who was ill, had to be admitted to hospital on arrival in Italy. The hospital sought an order from the Rome court excluding the mother from the hospital so that an assessment of her daughter’s condition could be made, as the mother’s constant presence and tendency to interfere in the treatm ent made any attempt at an assessment impossible. On 26 October 1988 the Rome court made a provisional care order in respect of the child. That decision came after information was received from the Greek authorities which, concerned by the successive hospi talisations of the child, had already taken measures to remove her from her mother’s care and had been considering adoption proceedings. That explained the applicant’s sudden departure from Greece. The applicant then agreed to undergo psychiatric treatment . On the basis of his examination of the applicant and what he was told by her sister-in-law, the examining doctor diagnosed psychosis. The care order was extended by the Milan court on 16 February 1989. On 16 March 1989 that court suspended the applicant’ s parental rights and prohibited any contact between her and her daughter, on the basis of a psychiatric report stating that the child was suffering from emotional and relational disorders caused by her mother’s pathological behaviour. In June 1989 the cou rt declared the child available for adoption. The applicant’s appeals against that decision failed despite the fact that certain factual inaccuracies were corrected. For example, it transpired that the Greek authorities had not taken any measures regarding the mother or her child and that there were doubts as to the reliability of the evidence of the applicant’s sister-in-law, on which the diagnosis of the applicant’s psychiatric condition had been based. There was no change in the position despite the appl icant’s repeated requests to be allowed to see her child (if necessary in the presence of a third party and in a neutral environment) and the production of psychiatric evidence as to her mental condition. On 7 June 1995 the Court of Cassation dismissed the applicant’s appeal on points of law. In 1996 an irrevocable order was made for the child’s adoption by foster parents.

Law : Article 6 § 1: The period to be taken into consideration was seven years. Courts must act with particular expedition in proceedings regarding parental responsibility. The inordinate amount of time taken was yet another example of the unreasonable delays which the Court has already had found characterised Italian civil proceedings (see the Bozzatti v. Italy judgment of 28 July 1999).

C onclusion : violation (unanimous).

Article 8: The Court noted, firstly, that there were a number of unresolved issues in the case. Although the authorities’ intervention was justified by the mother’s pathological behaviour towards her child, the interferenc e was made particularly serious by the absolute and irreversible nature of the forced separation which compromised the prospects of a renewed relationship between mother and child. The authorities had not analysed the situation with sufficient rigour. No p roper report had been available on the applicant’s state of health and factual inaccuracies had been discovered in the case that had been presented to the courts deciding the case.

Conclusion : violation (6 votes to 1).

Article 41: In view of the gravity and degree of suffering the applicant had endured, the Court awarded her 100,000,000 Italian lire as compensation for the non-pecuniary damage she had suffered. Other claims: with regard to the applicant’s request for a m eeting with her daughter, the Court reiterated that under Article 46 § 1 it is for States to decide what general and/or specific measures should be adopted to bring their internal judicial orders in line with the Convention and remedy the consequences of t he violation.

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

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