Communicated on 13 February 2019
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 47443/14
Peđa BOLJEVIĆ
against Serbia
lodged on 20 June 2014
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the establishment of paternity based on DNA testing methods which became available only many years after the issue had seemingly already been resolved. Specifically, by 1971 the applicant’s purported biological father obtained a final court ruling to the effect that there was insufficient evidence to conclude that the applicant was indeed his son. The applicant who had been born in 1969, however, apparently only became aware of this judgment in 2012, following his “father’s” death, and shortly thereafter sought the reopening of the said civil proceeding in order to definitively establish paternity by means of DNA testing, a method which had become available in the meantime but required a court order. Ultimately, by 23 January 2014, regular courts at two instances and the Constitutional Court all ruled against the applicant, referring to a lack of procedural basis for the requested reopening.
QUESTION tO THE PARTIES
Has there been a violation of the applicant’s right to respect for his private life, contrary to Article 8 of the Convention (see, mutatis mutandis, Jäggi v. Switzerland, no. 58757/00, §§ 28-44, ECHR 2006‑X, and Mifsud v. Malta, no. 62257/15, § 60, 29 January 2019)?
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