Published on 12 February 2024

FIFTH SECTION

Application no. 54897/22 Maksym Andriyovych GOVOROV against Ukraine lodged on 4 November 2022 communicated on 22 January 2024

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The case concerns the allegedly excessive length of the proceedings concerning a dispute between the applicant and his former spouse over custody and care of their child born in 2016, who was living with his mother separately from the applicant since December 2021, and the domestic courts’ dismissal of his application of 16 February 2022 for an interim order to compel his former spouse to ensure his access to and communication with their child while those proceedings were ongoing. In his interim-order application, the applicant inter alia argued that the proceedings had been ongoing at the Nova Ushytsya Town Court (the first-instance court) since February 2020. He also highlighted that the child’s mother had not complied with the contact arrangements recommended by a local childcare authority on 3 October 2018 and had obstructed his contact with the child since December 2021. On 14 June and 15 August 2022, respectively, the first-instance court and the Khmelnytskyy Court of Appeal dismissed that application on the grounds that the interim measures requested overlapped with the issues under consideration in the child custody and care proceedings and that the applicant hadn’t shown the necessity of those measures to enforce a judgment in that case. The applicant alleges a violation of Articles 6 and 8 of the Convention.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Was the length of the child custody and care proceedings in the present case in breach of the “reasonable time” requirement under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (see Laino v. Italy [GC], no. 33158/96, §§ 18-22, ECHR 1999 ‑ I; Milovanović v. Serbia , no. 56065/10, §§ 86-90, 8 October 2019; more recently, Ponomarenko v. Ukraine [Committee] , no. 17030/20, §§ 7-12, 22 September 2022; and Tryetyak v. Ukraine [Committee] , no. 10919/20, §§ 10-18, 22 September 2022)?

2. Has there been a violation of the applicant’s right to respect for his private and/or family life under Article 8 of the Convention on account of the domestic courts’ dismissal of his application for an interim order in the framework of the ongoing child custody and care proceedings at issue (see Cristian Cătălin Ungureanu v. Romania , no. 6221/14, §§ 28-35, 4 September 2018)?