| Applicant name | BOISTEAU |
| Applicant type | natural person |
| Number of applicants | 1 |
| Country | Poland |
| Application no. | 19561/22 |
| Date | 27/06/2024 |
| Judges | Ivana Jelić, President, Krzysztof Wojtyczek, Erik Wennerström |
| Institution | Court |
| Type | Judgment |
| Outcome Art. 8 | Violation |
| Reason | Positive obligation; procedural requirements |
| Type of privacy | Procedural privacy; Relational privacy |
| Keywords | Contact child |
| Facts of the case | The application concerns the applicant’s contact with his child, the enforcement of interim measures and the length of proceedings in this matter. |
| Analysis | The overall length of the domestic proceedings concerning the contact arrangements, between 22 May 2017 and 28 October 2021, exceeded four years and five months at two instances. The Court acknowledges that the parents were in a heated conflict and the overall duration of the proceedings was, at least in part, attributable to their own actions. However, lack of cooperation between separated parents is not a circumstance which can of itself exempt the authorities from their positive obligations under Article 8. Overall, the Court finds that the protracted actions of the domestic courts resulted in a de facto determination of the matter and prevented the applicant from developing a meaningful relationship with his son during the first years of the child’s life, gravely affecting the latter’s possibility to know his father, form a bond with him or even learn his language. Having regard to the facts of the case, in particular the passage of time and the child’s very young age, and the criteria laid down in its own case-law, the Court concludes that, notwithstanding the State’s margin of appreciation, the respondent State failed to satisfy the procedural requirements of expedience inherent in the right to respect for family life under Article 8 of the Convention. |
| Other Article violation? | – |
| Damage awarded | that the respondent State is to pay the applicant, within three months, the following amounts: (i) EUR 6,500 (six thousand five hundred euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable, in respect of non-pecuniary damage; (ii) EUR 8,000 (eight thousand euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable to the applicant, in respect of costs and expenses; |
| Documents | Judgment |