| Applicant name | TERESHCHENKO |
| Applicant type | Natural person |
| Number of applicants | Carlo Ranzoni, President, Mattias Guyomar, Mykola Gnatovskyy |
| Country | UKRAINE |
| Application no. | 35481/20 |
| Date | 19/10/2023 |
| Judges | Carlo Ranzoni, President, Mattias Guyomar, Mykola Gnatovskyy |
| Institution | Court |
| Type | Judgment |
| Outcome Art. 8 | Violation |
| Reason | Positive obligation |
| Type of privacy | Procedural privacy; realtional privacy |
| Keywords | Access right |
| Facts of the case | The case concerns the domestic courts’ alleged failure to establish a schedule providing sufficient contact for the applicant to be able to maintain and develop a relationship with his daughter, who was born in 2016 and lives with her mother (B.) separately from the applicant. |
| Analysis | The applicant complained of a violation of Articles 6, 8 and 13 of the Convention. The Court, however, finds that the applicant’s complaint falls to be examined solely under Article 8 of the Convention. The Court reiterates that countries have to strike a fair balance between the interests of the child and those of the parents and to attach particular importance to the child’s best interests when dealing with disputes between parents regarding access to children. The Court finds that the domestic courts limited the applicant’s meetings with his daughter to four days per month without providing any concrete reasons or indications that this would be in the child’s interests. As to the suggestions that farther had somehow traumatised his child, the domestic courts did not investigate these. They also did not explore whether the alleged problem in the applicant’s relationship with his daughter could have been alleviated by other measures to give practical effect to the guarantee of mutual enjoyment by parent and child of each other’s company. Thus, the ECtHR finds that it was not established that thelimitations were in the child’s best interests, and the applicant’s interest in meeting his child was not duly taken into account. |
| Other Article violation? | – |
| Damage awarded | that the respondent State is to pay the applicant, within three months, the following amounts, to be converted into the currency of the respondent State at the rate applicable at the date of settlement: (i) EUR 2,900 (two thousand nine hundred euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable, in respect of non-pecuniary damage; (ii) EUR 250 (two hundred and fifty euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable to the applicant, in respect of costs and expenses; |
| Documents | Judgment |