Guide on Article 8 of the Convention – Right to respect for private and family life
ment by continuing their relationship with the child (Paradiso and Campanelli v. Italy [GC], §§ 165 and 215). The facts of the case touched on ethically sensitive issues – adoption, the taking of a child into care, medically assisted reproduction and surrogate motherhood – in which Member States enjoyed a wide margin of appreciation (§§ 182-184 and 194). 19 122. Article 8 also applies to sterilisation procedures. As it concerns one of the essential bodily functions of human beings, sterilisation bears on manifold aspects of the individual’s personal integrity, including his or her physical and mental wellbeing and emotional, spiritual and family life (V.C. v. Slovakia, § 106). The Court has determined that States have a positive obligation to ensure effective legal safeguards to protect women from non-consensual sterilisation, with a particular emphasis on the protection of reproductive health for women of Roma origin. In several cases, the Court has found that Roma women required protection against sterilisation because of a history of nonconsensual sterilisation against this vulnerable ethnic minority (ibid., §§ 154-155; I.G. and Others v. Slovakia, §§ 143-146). This jurisprudence also applies to inadvertent sterilisation, when the doctor fails to perform adequate checks or obtain informed consent during an abortion procedure (Csoma v. Romania, §§ 65-68). 123. The Court also found that the ability of an applicant to exercise a conscious and considered choice regarding the fate of her embryos concerned an intimate aspect of her personal life, of her right to selfdetermination, and thus of her private life (Parrillo v. Italy [GC], § 159). The margin of appreciation of the Member States on this matter is, however, wide, given the lack of a European consensus (§§ 180-183). A statutory prohibition on the donation to research of cryopreserved embryos which had been created following the applicant’s in vitro fertilisation treatment was therefore not considered to be in violation of the applicant’s right to private life.
3. Forced medical treatment and compulsory medical procedures 124. The Court has also addressed the implications of Article 8 for other cases involving forced medical treatment or medical injury (in addition to sterilisations). On some occasions, the Convention organs have found that relatively minor medical tests, which are compulsory (Acmanne and Others v. Belgium, Commission decision; Boffa and Others v. San Marino, Commission decision; Salvetti v. Italy (dec.)) or authorised by court order (X v. Austria, Commission decision; Peters v. the Netherlands, Commission decision), may constitute a proportionate interference with Article 8 even without the consent of the patient. In Vavřička and Others v. the Czech Republic [GC], concerning a fine of a parent and the exclusion of children from preschool for their refusal to comply with a statutory child vaccination duty, the Court found an ’interference’ with the right to respect for “private life” of both the children and the parents (§§ 263-264). 125. The Court has held that a doctor’s decision to treat a severely disabled child contrary to a parent’s express wishes, and without the opportunity for judicial review of the decision, violated Article 8 (Glass v. the United Kingdom). The Court similarly found that doctors taking blood tests and photographs of a child who presented symptoms consistent with abuse without the consent of the child’s parents violated the child’s right to physical integrity under Article 8 (M.A.K. and R.K. v. the United Kingdom). On the other hand, in Gard and Others v. the United Kingdom (dec.), the Court found that the withdrawal of treatment from a terminally ill infant against the wishes of his parents did not violate their rights under Article 8. The Court also found that the State’s decision to submit a
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See also Medically assisted procreation/right to become genetic parents under Family life.
European Court of Human Rights
34/161
Last update: 31.08.2021
