Legal summary
November 2025
Kyrian v. the Czech Republic - 15956/23
Judgment 6.11.2025 [Section V]
Article 8
Article 8-1
Respect for private life
Domestic courts’ refusal to order a child’s legal parents to provide the applicant, who is not the legal father, information in respect of his son: no violation
Facts – The applicant is the biological father of a child born in 2013 as a result of an extramarital relationship with the mother. By reason of legal presumption, the mother’s then husband became the child’s legal father and the child lived with his legal parents. Until February 2016 the applicant was able to see his son two to four times per month. Subsequently, the applicant lodged successful claims to be granted contact rights in respect of his son. However, in 2020, following a request by the legal parents that contact between the child and the applicant be prohibited, the domestic courts ruled that no contact regime should be set, finding that it had not been in the child’s best interests to be in contact with the applicant as long as the relationship between the latter and the legal parents had remained conflictual.
In 2021 the applicant lodged a new application seeking to be granted contact rights. Additionally, he requested the right to contact the child through written communication via the child’s guardian ad litem and that the child’s legal parents be ordered to regularly inform him about the child’s development. Both claims were dismissed at first instance and the decision was upheld on appeal. The applicant’s constitutional appeal was unsuccessful.
Law – Article 8:
(1) Applicability of Article 8 and existence of an interference – The Court observed that the applicant and the child’s mother had been in a relationship for several years, that at least from the applicant’s perspective they had been planning to live together, and that the mother had enabled him to see the child until February 2016. The applicant had also sufficiently demonstrated his interest in the child. Thus, the Court did not exclude that the applicant’s intended relationship with his biological son had amounted to “family life” under Article 8. In any event, the determination of the legal relations between the applicant and the child, had concerned an important part of the applicant’s identity and therefore his “private life” under Article 8 § 1. Thus, the domestic courts’ decision not to determine his contact rights and to refuse him information about the child had amounted to an interference with his right to respect, at least, for his private life.
(2) Whether the interference was justified –
(a) Complaint concerning the courts’ refusal to grant the applicant contact rights – Under Article 927 of the Civil Code, persons socially close to a child might be granted contact rights if the child had an emotional relationship with them that was not temporary and if it was clear that a lack of contact with those persons would cause harm to the child. In the 2021 proceedings the courts had concluded that those conditions had not been met and had not set any contact regime between the applicant and the child. In the Court’s view, it was noteworthy that the contested decisions had been taken only after other measures – namely regular unsupervised and supervised contact, a period of no contact regime which had been aimed at stabilising the child’s mental state, and the courts’ repeated calls on the applicant and the child’s legal parents to seek professional guidance and to consolidate their relationship – had failed. It was also of great significance that the Czech courts had placed the child’s best interests first. Indeed, their conclusion that it would be inappropriate to force the child to have contact with the applicant against his will had been made with regard to the child’s fragile psychological condition, his difficulties in grasping the strained family situation, his persistent reluctance to see the applicant and the tense relations between the latter and the child’s legal parents. There was nothing to indicate that the domestic courts findings had been unreasonable. Additionally, the domestic courts had never questioned the applicant’s role in the child’s life and had expressly recognised that the applicant might be granted contact rights in future, provided that the relations among all the persons involved improved. Regarding the decision-making process, the relevant decisions had been reached following adversarial proceedings in which the applicant, assisted by counsel, had been directly involved and had been allowed to put forward all of his arguments, having had access to all relevant information that had been relied on by the courts. The first-instance court had heard not only the applicant but also the child’s legal parents and his guardian ad litem. Furthermore, in taking its decision, it had had regard to the entire family situation and had relied on an expert report by a psychologist.
The domestic courts’ refusal to grant the applicant contact rights had amounted to a serious interference with his rights. Where the existence of a family bond was established, the State must in principle act in such a way as to allow such a bond to develop. The Court was satisfied that the domestic courts had taken adequate measures in that sense and had adduced sufficient reasons for their decision not to set any contact regime and that the decision-making process had been fair and afforded due respect for the interests safeguarded by Article 8. The State had therefore complied with its positive obligations and had struck a fair balance between the interests of all those involved in the proceedings.
Conclusion: inadmissible (manifestly ill-founded) (by a majority).
(b) Complaint concerning the courts’ refusal to allow the applicant to be provided with information about the child – The Court declared this aspect of the applicant’s complaint to be admissible. It recognised at the outset, that the right to information about a child belonged primarily to those with parental responsibility who were called on to make decisions about the child’s upbringing or medical treatment. Nevertheless, it had previously found that, for a biological parent whose child had been brought up by the legal parents, the issue of receiving information about the child’s personal circumstances concerned an important part of his or her identity. In matters of contact rights, the obligations that Article 8 imposes had to be interpreted taking into account the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Council of Europe Contact Convention. It followed from Article 8, interpreted in the light of Articles 2 (a) (iii) and 4 § 3 of the Contact Convention, that the right to be provided information about a child was an autonomous form of contact which might be granted independently of the right to personal contact, especially if it was not in the best interests of a child to maintain personal contact with their parent. Therefore, when considering any motion by which a biological parent sought the right to information about his or her child, the domestic authorities had to examine the particular circumstances of the case in order to decide whether providing that information would be in the child’s best interests or whether, at least in that regard, the biological parent’s interest had to be considered as overriding that of the legal parents.
It followed from the impugned decisions that the domestic courts considered that the right to information about the child had been primarily a matter of parental responsibility, of which the applicant had not been a holder. The appellate court then considered that, in such circumstances, the applicant could have been granted the right to information only within the framework of the determination of his personal contact rights under Article 927 of the Civil Code. Nevertheless, the further reasoning adopted by the domestic courts appeared to confirm that, under Czech law, the right to information about a child might also be granted as an autonomous right independent of personal contact, thus respecting the requirement of an individualised approach under Article 8. Indeed, the courts examined whether, providing information to the applicant would be in the child’s best interests. In that connection, the courts had attached importance to the fact that the legal parents had been opposed to communicating any information to the applicant, whose behaviour in their view had bordered on stalking, and to the child’s persistent negative attitude towards the applicant and the absence of any positive bond to him. In the specific circumstances of the case, the contact rights and the right to information had been very much interrelated, which was why the domestic courts might have reasonably considered it appropriate to rely on the same facts when ruling on them. It was apparent from their decisions that they had consistently kept in mind the need to preserve the child’s psychological condition and the emotional security provided by his legal parents. In that connection, although the right to information about a child was of fundamental importance for the parent who had no physical or direct contact with their child, there might be situations in which the denial of that right would better suit the best interests of the child.
The Court was satisfied that the domestic courts had specifically addressed the applicant’s right to information about his son and had attached weight both to the question whether the obligation to provide him that information would have an impact on the legal parents’ right to respect for their family life, and to the child’s best interests. Referring to its conclusion concerning the courts’ refusal to grant the applicant contact rights, it considered that the impugned decisions had fairly balanced the competing interests at stake and had pursued the child’s best interests. The Court also noted that the applicant appeared to have recently had access to information about the child through the mother’s intermediary. In view of those considerations, and bearing in mind the Court’s subsidiary role and the State’s margin of appreciation, it was satisfied that the domestic courts had adduced sufficient reasons for their refusal to order the child’s legal parents to provide the applicant information about the child and that the decision‑making process had offered the applicant the requisite protection of his interests safeguarded by Article 8.
Conclusion: no violation (six votes to one).
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
To access legal summaries in English or French click here.
For non-official translations into other languages click here.