| Analysis |
While such a matter would now certainly be said to fall under the scope of the right to privacy, the Commission in this case still interprets the Convention (and especially Article 8 ECHR) as it was originally intended, namely as a document that provided the citizen with negative freedom rights vis-a-vis the government and stressing the negative obligation of governments not to abuse their power when infringing in the domains covered by the provisions of the Convention. It stresses: ‘It is true that Article 8 (Art. 8) of the Convention secures to everyone the right to respect for his family life. However, this provision is primarily negative in the sense that it gives protection against unjustified interference with family life by public authorities, but does not oblige the State positively to re-establish conditions of family life already impaired, as in the present case, by divorce and the suspension of the rights of custody of the father. The applicant’s complaint that the judicial authorities neither ordered his wife, nor themselves arranged, to provide him with reports on his child can therefore not be regarded as a violation of Article 8 (Art. 8) of the Convention.’
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