| Applicant name | COLOMBIER |
| Applicant type | Natural person |
| Number of applicants | 3 |
| Country | France |
| Application no. | 14925/18 |
| Date | 15/02/2024 |
| Judges | Georges Ravarani , president , Chanturia side, Charles Ranzoni, Martin Mits, Stephanie Mourou-Vikström, Mattias Guyomar, Kateřina Šimáčková |
| Institution | Court |
| Type | Judgment |
| Outcome Art. 8 | No violation |
| Reason | |
| Type of privacy | economic privacy |
| Keywords | inheritance |
| Facts of the case | The applicants complain of a breach of their right to respect for their family life on account of the domestic courts’ rejection of their application for recognition of their reserved share in their father’s estate. |
| Analysis | The question is whether, in rejecting the applicants’ request for recognition of their reserved share in their father’s estate, the respondent State failed to comply with its positive obligation to guarantee them effective respect for their family life. In this respect, the Court must verify whether, in the light of the grounds given by the domestic courts, the State duly weighed up the competing interests at stake. The Court, which has never recognised the existence of a general and unconditional right of children to inherit part of their parents’ property sees no reason to depart from the reasoning of the domestic courts. The Court notes that the applicants’ arguments, both domestically and before the Court, focus on the fact that the family life they shared with their father was affected by his marriage. However, the Court does not see any obstacle to the development of family ties during their father’s lifetime that could be attributed to any action or inaction on the part of the authorities. It follows that there has been no violation of Article 8 of the Convention. The Court considers that the domestic courts, by their decisions, did not create a difference in treatment between persons in an analogous or comparable situation, nor did they fail in their obligation to remedy such a difference in treatment. In any event, it was not their interpretation of an individual will which led to the applicants’ exclusion from their father’s estate but respect for the deceased’s choice. In these circumstances, the Court considers that Mr Michel Colombier ’s decision to make a radical choice between his children, permitted by foreign law and upheld by the French courts, does not constitute discriminatory treatment within the meaning of Article 14 of the Convention. |
| Other Article violation? | No violation 8+14 |
| Damage awarded | – |
| Documents | Judgment |