Published on 7 June 2022

FIFTH SECTION

Application no. 59252/19 Martin VINŠKOVSKÝ against the Czech Republic lodged on 8 November 2019 communicated on 16 May 2022

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the proceedings on contact rights between a child and the applicant, the child’s mother’s partner who had lived with them for two years; at that time, the child was between 2 and 4 years old. After their separation, the mother prevented the applicant from seeing the child and his applications for contact rights, in which he claimed to have developed a close emotional relationship with the child, were dismissed both in the interim and the main proceedings. The courts observed that given the period which had passed since the last contact between the applicant and the child, the latter had internalized the opinions of her mother and did not miss the applicant, while a possibility had to be preserved for contacts between the child and her biological father should the latter decide to take part in his daughter’s life.

The applicant complains, mainly under Article 8 of the Convention, that the courts’ decisions disregarded his right to respect for family life and that the State failed to facilitate any contact between him and the child.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Did the relationship between the applicant and the child amount to “family life” within the meaning of Article 8 of the Convention?

2. If so, has there been a violation of the applicant’s right to respect for his family life, contrary to Article 8 of the Convention? In particular, did the domestic authorities have a positive obligation under Article 8 to secure an effective respect for the applicant’s family life and to act in a manner calculated to enable the family tie existing between the applicant and his ex-partner’s child to develop (see, notably, Honner v. France , no. 19511/16, 12 November 2020, with further references)? If so, have they fulfilled that obligation and have they exercised exceptional diligence in view of the risk that the passage of time may result in a de facto determination of the matter (see, among other authorities, Ahrens v. Germany , no. 45071/09, § 78, 22 March 2012)?

3. Have the impugned proceedings on the contact rights been fair and taken into consideration the specific circumstances of the case, in particular the relationship that existed between the child and the applicant before the latter’s separation from the child’s mother (see, mutatis mutandis , V.D. and Others v. Russia , no. 72931/10, § 129, 9 April 2019)? Was the child’s opinion duly secured or should the courts have obtained an expert opinion on the question whether it was in the child’s best interests to maintain contact with the applicant (see, mutatis mutandis , Nazarenko v. Russia , no. 39438/13, § 66, ECHR 2015 (extracts)?