| Applicant name | SOTO TREVINO |
| Applicant type | natural person |
| Number of applicants | 1 |
| Country | Ukraine |
| Application no. | 12498/21 |
| Date | 11/04/2024 |
| Judges | Carlo Ranzoni, President, Mattias Guyomar, Mykola Gnatovskyy |
| Institution | Court |
| Type | Judgment |
| Outcome Art. 8 | Violation |
| Reason | Positive obligation |
| Type of privacy | Procedural privacy; relational privacy |
| Keywords | Child custody |
| Facts of the case | Relying on Article 8, the applicant complained that the domestic proceedings in the present case, during which he had been unable to contact his minor child, had been excessively long.Relying on Article 8, the applicant complained that the authorities had failed to enforce the contact arrangements set out in the first-instance court’s interim order of 1 July 2019 as upheld by the appellate court’s decision of 19 November 2019. |
| Analysis | The Court notes that the domestic proceedings for the return of the applicant’s then one-year-old child lasted for approximately two years and ten months, which significantly exceeded the six-week time-limit set out in Article 11 of the Hague Convention, and involved delays attributable mainly to the authorities. Accordingly, the Court finds that there has been a violation of Article 8 in that the authorities failed to examine the case in the most expeditious manner as required in this type of dispute. Overall, the authorities’ reluctant attitude towards the applicant’s requests for assistance in enforcing the interim order on contact arrangements in the period of 5 December 2019 – the date of his first application to the Bailiffs Service – until 29 April 2021 (see paragraphs 4 and 20 above), which is significant given that the order concerned the applicant’s access to his very young child, breached the applicant’s right to have measures taken with a view to his being reunited with his child and was contrary to the authorities’ obligation to facilitate such a reunion. There has accordingly been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention on account of the non-enforcement of the Ordzhonikidzevskyi District Court’s interim order of 1 July 2019. |
| Other Article violation? | – |
| Damage awarded | Holds (a) that the respondent State is to pay the applicant, within three months, EUR 6,000 (six thousand euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable, in respect of non-pecuniary damage; (b) that from the expiry of the above-mentioned three months until settlement simple interest shall be payable on the above amount at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points; |
| Documents | Judgment |