Guide on Article 8 of the Convention – Right to respect for private and family life
relationship falls within the sphere of private life. Thus, the right to keep a dog does not fall within the scope of Article 8 protection (X. v. Iceland, Commission decision).
2. Right to discover one’s origins 41 247. The Court has recognised the right to obtain information in order to discover one’s origins and the identity of one’s parents as an integral part of identity protected under the right to private and family life (Odièvre v. France [GC], § 29; Gaskin v. the United Kingdom, § 39; Çapın v. Turkey,§§ 3334; Boljević v. Serbia, § 28). 248. The private life of a deceased person from whom a DNA sample would have to be taken could not be adversely affected by a request to that effect made following his death (Jäggi v. Switzerland, § 42; Boljević v. Serbia, § 54). 249. The Court has ruled that it is not compulsory for States to DNA test alleged fathers, but that the legal system must provide alternative means enabling an independent authority to speedily determine a paternity claim. For example in Mikulić v. Croatia, §§ 52-55, the applicant was born out of an extramarital relationship and complained that the Croatian judicial system had been inefficient in determining the issue of paternity, leaving her uncertain as to her personal identity. In that case the Court held that the inefficiency of the domestic courts had left the applicant in a state of prolonged uncertainty as to her personal identity. The Croatian authorities had therefore failed to secure to the applicant the “respect” for her private life to which she was entitled under the Convention (ibid., § 68). The Court has also held that procedures must exist that allow particularly vulnerable children, such as those with disabilities, to access information about their paternity (A.M.M. v. Romania, §§ 58-65). In Jäggi v. Switzerland, the Court found the refusal by the authorities to authorise a DNA test on a deceased person, requested by the putative son wishing to establish his parentage with certainty, to violate Article 8. In that case, the applicant’s interest in ascertaining the identity of his biological father prevailed over that of the remaining family of the deceased which opposed the taking of DNA samples (§§ 40-44). In Boljević v. Serbia, the Court found that, in the very specific circumstances of the case, a time-bar, which precluded the DNA test of a deceased man and the review of the final judgment approving his disavowal of paternity, constituted a violation of Article 8. In this case, the judgment had been rendered before DNA tests became available and without the applicant’s knowledge. He only became aware of it decades after the applicable deadline for the reopening of the paternity proceedings had already expired. The Court held that the preservation of legal certainty could not suffice in itself as a ground for depriving the applicant of the right to ascertain his parentage (§ 55). 250. The Court also found a violation of Article 8 where domestic courts rejected the application to reopen proceedings to establish the paternity of a child, when all the parties concerned were in favour of establishing the biological truth concerning the filiation, on the basis of scientific evidence which had not been available at the date of the paternity proceedings (Bocu v. Romania, §§ 33-36). Similarly, it has found a violation of Article 8 where an applicant claiming to be the biological father was unable to seek to establish paternity because another man had already reciognised the child, and where there had been no detailed assessment by the domestic courts (Koychev v. Bulgaria, §§ 59-68).
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See also the Guide on Data protection.
European Court of Human Rights
61/161
Last update: 31.08.2021
