Communicated on 8 October 2019
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 38097/19
G.B.
against Norway
lodged on 9 July 2019
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns parental responsibilities, adoption of and contact with the applicant’s son, born in 2014.
Following a period in which the applicant’s son had been placed in emergency foster care, the County Social Welfare Board (fylkesnemnda for barnevern og sosiale saker) decided, in 2015, to place him in foster care. The applicant and the boy’s mother brought the decision before the City Court (tingrett), but subsequently partly withdrew their application and gave a joint statement of claim with the municipality to which the relevant child welfare services belonged, essentially to the effect that the parents’ contact rights were set at three times yearly for each, in addition to three times yearly together. Towards the end of 2015, the City Court gave judgment in accordance with the parties’ joint statement of claim.
In 2017 the Board decided that parental responsibilities in respect of the boy should be removed from the parents, and that his foster parents should be authorised to adopt him. The Board set post-adoption contact visits between the parents and their son at two hours, twice yearly.
In 2018, on appeal from the parents, the City Court upheld the decision in respect of removal of parental responsibilities and adoption, but increased the post-adoption contact visits to two hours, three times yearly. It also decided that the adoptive parents were entitled to take part in the visits. One of the judges on the City Court’s bench – a psychologist who acted as expert judge – had also sat on the bench when the question of foster care had been brought before it in 2015.
The High Court (lagmannsrett) refused the parents leave to appeal against the City Court’s judgment.
On 30 April 2019 the Supreme Court’s Appeal’s Leave Committee (Høyesteretts ankeutvalg) dismissed the parents’ appeal against the High Court’s decision.
Under Article 8 of the Convention, the applicant submits that the decision to remove his parental responsibilities in respect of his son and to authorise his son’s adoption, entailed an unnecessary interference with his right to respect for family life. Under Article 6 he maintains that the domestic courts were not impartial when taking that decision, as one of the judges had participated in taking the prior decision concerning foster care.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Did the applicant have a fair hearing in the determination of his civil rights and obligations, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention? Was the court which dealt with the applicant’s case impartial, as required by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention?
3. Has there been a violation of the applicant’s right to respect for his family life, contrary to Article 8 of the Convention? (See, for example, Strand Lobben and Others v. Norway [GC], no. 37283/13, 10 September 2019).
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