Information Note on the Court’s case-law No.
August 1997
Anne-Marie Andersson v. Sweden - 20022/92
Judgment 27.8.1997
Article 6
Article 6-1
Civil rights and obligations
Lack of possibility for a patient, prior to the communication of personal and confidential medical data by medical authority to a social services authority, to challenge the measure before a court: Article 6 § 1 not applicable
[This summary is extracted from the Court’s official reports (Series A or Reports of Judgments and Decisions). Its formatting and structure may therefore differ from the Case-Law Information Note summaries.]
I.PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS
Deceased applicant’s son had sufficient interest to justify continuation of the examination of the case.
Conclusion: affirmative (unanimously).
Court had no jurisdiction to entertain applicant’s Article 8 complaint.
II.ARTICLE 6 § 1 OF THE CONVENTION
If chief psychiatrist possessed information about the applicant patient to the effect that intervention by Social Council was necessary for protection of her under-age son, the psychiatrist was under a duty to report immediately to the Council – that duty extended to all data in her possession potentially relevant to Council's investigation into need to take protective measures with respect to the son and depended exclusively on relevance of those data – scope of this obligation and fact that the psychiatrist enjoyed very wide discretion in assessing what data would be relevant – in this regard, no duty to hear applicant's views before transmitting the information – a “right” to prevent communication of such data could not, on arguable grounds, be said to be recognised under national law.
Conclusions: inapplicable (five votes to four) and no violation (eight votes to one).
III.ARTICLE 13 OF THE CONVENTION
Separate issue arose with regard to Article 13 – this provision applied only in respect of arguable Convention complaints – whether that was so in the case of the applicant's claim under Article 8 had to be determined in light of particular facts and nature of legal issues raised – in this connection, Commission's decision declaring her Article 8 complaint inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded was not decisive but provided significant pointers – on the evidence adduced, applicant had no arguable claim in respect of a violation.
Conclusion: no violation (unanimously).
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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