CONCURRING OPINION OF JUDGE LAFFRANQUE

I voted with the majority: the judgment as such cannot depart from the already established case-law of the Court, created by and further developed since the Grand Chamber judgment in the case of Dubská and Krejzová v. the Czech Republic ([GC], nos. 28859/11 and 28473/12, 15 November 2016).

However, I have not changed my views as expressed in the joint dissenting opinion in Dubská and Krejzová with judges Sajó , Karakaş , Nicolaou and Keller. There should be no room in a democratic society for any interference with mothers ’ freedom of choice which is not proportionate and which deprives them of the possibility of receiving the indispensable assistance of a midwife during home births, assuming that the preconditions for home birth are met. This is also detrimental to the health of mothers and of course to their newborns. The pre-trial investigations in Lithuania in respect of individuals who had assisted women during home births turned the very concept of home birth into something that was against the law, even if it was not prohibited as such in the Lithuanian legal system.

Nonetheless, the fact of recent positive developments in Lithuanian legislation, so that Lithuanian law has been amended to include provisions explicitly regulating home births, is only to be welcomed.