Information Note on the Court’s case-law No.
February 1998
Dalia v. France - 26102/95
Judgment 19.2.1998
Article 8
Article 8-1
Respect for family life
Respect for private life
Order permanently excluding from French territory a convicted Algerian woman who had arrived in France when she was 17 or 18 to join her mother and seven brothers and sisters lawfully resident there and is the mother of an under-age child of French nationality: no violation
[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.GOVERNMENT’S PRELIMINARY OBJECTION (failure to exhaust domestic remedies)
The Government had not produced before the Court any case-law to support their argument concerning the sufficiency and effectiveness in the instant case of appeal on points of law that applicant could have lodged against Court of Appeal’s judgment.
Conclusion: objection dismissed (seven votes to two).
II.ARTICLE 8 OF THE CONVENTION
A.Paragraph 1
Examination of question whether applicant had a private and family life at date of Court of Appeal’s refusal to lift the exclusion order made against her – applicant could rely on birth of her son – there had been an interference with her right to respect for her private and family life.
B.Paragraph 2
1.“In accordance with the law”:
Basis of interference in law: not disputed that it lay in provisions of national legislation.
2.Legitimate aim
Prevention of disorder or crime.
3.“Necessary in a democratic society”
Recapitulation of case-law: Contracting States’ duty to maintain public order, in particular by exercising their right to control entry and residence of aliens – to that end, power to deport aliens convicted of criminal offences.
Applicant had real ties in France but also important links with Algeria – interference in issue not so drastic as that which might result from expulsion of applicants who had been born in host country or had first gone there as young children.
Link she had formed with child when she had been in France illegally could not be decisive – great weight given to nature of offence underlying prison sentence and exclusion order, namely dealing in heroin.
Conclusion: no violation (six votes to three).
III.ARTICLE 3 OF THE CONVENTION
Facts of case did not establish that renewed enforcement of exclusion order would cause applicant suffering of such intensity as to constitute “inhuman” or “degrading” treatment.
Conclusion: no violation (unanimously).
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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