Gescheiden vrouw in Boekarest onthoudt Franse vader de toegang tot zoon - Mensenrechtenhof veroordeelt Roemenië (en)

Press release issued by the Registrar

CHAMBER JUDGMENT

LAFARGUE v. ROMANIA

The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment¹ in the case of Lafargue v. Romania (application no. 37284/02).

The Court held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (right to respect for family life), since the Romanian authorities had not made appropriate or sufficient efforts to ensure respect for the applicant’s right of access to and residence with his son.

Under Article 41 of the Convention (just satisfaction), the Court awarded the applicant 15,000 euros (EUR) for non-pecuniary damage and EUR 7,400 for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in French.)

• 1. 

  Principal facts

Gaston Lafargue is a French national who was born on 16 June 1964 and lives in Saint-Vincent-de-Paul (France).

In May 1995 the applicant and his wife P., a Romanian national, had a son, Pierre Albert. When the couple divorced in 1997 the Bucharest Court of First Instance awarded custody of Pierre Albert to P. On 16 December 1999 an access and residence order was made authorising the applicant to spend one week with his son during the winter holidays and two weeks during his annual holidays. That decision was upheld at final instance by the Bucharest Court of Appeal on 3 May 2000. Since then the applicant has been trying to avail himself of his rights under the access and residence order.

In order to obtain enforcement of the decision of 16 December 1999, Mr Lafargue applied to the court bailiff service of the Bucharest Court of First Instance asking for P. to be summoned to attend with the child. However, on each occasion she either failed to appear or came alone, saying that Pierre Albert was with his grandparents, or in hospital, or was refusing to see his father.

The applicant also went several times to his former wife’s flat accompanied by a court bailiff, but was unable to see his son, either because his former wife refused to let him in, or because the child was not there.

In addition, having been informed of the case by the applicant, the French authorities responsible for applying the Hague Convention of 25 October 1980 on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, contacted the Romanian Ministry of Justice, which brought an action under the Hague Convention requesting that a detailed access programme be drawn up for the applicant. The case is currently pending in the Romanian courts. However, in 2005 the Bucharest Court of First Instance drew up a provisional access programme granting the applicant access on alternate weekends, from 4 p.m. on Friday to 5 p.m. on Sunday.

Furthermore, on four occasions the applicant lodged complaints against his former wife for failure to comply with the measures concerning custody of and access to the child. In each case those complaints ended with a decision that there was no case to answer, and P. was required to pay only an administrative fine equivalent to EUR 160.

Since the European Court of Human Rights gave notice of the application to the Romanian Government, at the beginning of 2005, the applicant has been able to meet his son a number of times, accompanied by a psychologist.

• 2. 

  Procedure and composition of the Court

The application was lodged on 15 October 2002 and declared partly admissible on 8 September 2005.

Judgment was given by a Chamber of 7 judges, composed as follows:

Boštjan M. Zupan?i? (Slovenian), President,

John Hedigan (Irish),

Lucius Caflisch (Swiss)²,

Corneliu Bîrsan (Romanian),

Vladimiro Zagrebelsky (Italian),

Egbert Myjer (Netherlands),

David Thór Björgvinsson (Icelandic), judges,

and also Vincent Berger, Section Registrar.

• 3. 

  Summary of the judgment³

Complaint

The applicant alleged that the Romanian authorities had not taken appropriate measures to ensure prompt execution of the judicial decisions whereby he had been awarded access and residence rights with regard to his son. He relied on Article 8 of the Convention.

Decision of the Court

Article 8

The Court noted that since 3 May 2000 there had been an obligation on the Romanian authorities to take measures to facilitate the applicant’s exercise of his right of access to his child. However, all the attempts during which the applicant, accompanied by a court bailiff, had tried to get to meet his child had been unsuccessful until the beginning of the year 2005, mainly because of the mother’s conduct. The Romanian authorities had not taken any other appropriate measure, such as measures to prepare for exercise of the rights conferred in the access order.

In spite of the opposition of his former wife, the applicant had actively sought execution of the decision awarding him the right of access, travelling to Romania a number of times in the hope of seeing his son. It was only at the beginning of 2005, and after notice of the application had been given to the Government, that the applicant had been able to meet his child several times. Those meetings had been organised by the local social services, over a period of five months, and had been of short duration. In addition, although psychologists’ reports attested to the effectiveness of such meetings, they had not been continued by the authorities. Although they did not equate with effective exercise of the right of access, the meetings had shown that the State had appropriate means of facilitating exercise of that right.

Lastly, the Court noted that the Romanian authorities had imposed only a single pecuniary penalty on the applicant’s former wife as a result of his criminal complaints, tolerating for more than six years her refusal to comply with a judicial decision. Moreover, the documents sent to the Court did not specify whether P. had actually paid the small fine involved.

That being the case, the Court considered that over a period of approximately six years the Romanian authorities had failed to make appropriate or sufficient efforts to ensure respect for the applicant’s right of access to and residence with his son, thus infringing his right to respect for his family life. It accordingly held that there had been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention.

***

The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site (http://www.echr.coe.int).

Registry of the European Court of Human Rights

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Press contacts: Emma Hellyer (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 15)

Stéphanie Klein (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 88 41 21 54)

Beverley Jacobs (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 54 21)

The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.