Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 110
July 2008
McDonald v. France - 18648/04
Decision 29.4.2008 [Section V]
Article 14
Discrimination
Refusal to grant an authority to enforce the judgment of foreign court: inadmissible
The applicant, an American diplomat, married a French woman in France. Some years later the applicant filed a petition for divorce for misconduct against his wife with the tribunal de grande instance, but his petition was dismissed. The court granted both spouses parental authority over their child and fixed a monthly financial provision the applicant was to pay to his wife. As neither spouse appealed against that judgment, it became final. At a later date the applicant filed a petition for divorce with a court in his home state of Florida (USA). That court dissolved the marriage but left certain aspects of the divorce, such as maintenance, to the French courts to decide. Thereupon, the applicant stopped paying the financial provision the French court had ordered him to pay his former wife. The couple then disposed of various assets linked to their former marriage, but the applicant’s ex-wife had part of the applicant’s share of the proceeds attached for failure to pay the monthly financial provision. The applicant applied to the executions judge to lift the attachment, but his application was dismissed. He then applied to the tribunal de grande instance to enforce the judgment pronounced by the Florida court, but that action was also dismissed as the applicant had failed to demonstrate that his ex-wife had renounced the right to jurisdiction of the French courts to which she was entitled under the Civil Code. The applicant appealed both rulings. The Court of Appeal joined the cases and dismissed them. It found that the judgment pronounced in Florida could not be fully recognised in France, much less declared enforceable as requested, because the American courts had no international jurisdiction in this case, which fell within the exclusive jurisdiction of the French courts, and because in turning to the American courts the applicant had attempted to circumvent the law and obtain the divorce the French courts had just denied him, in order to avoid paying the financial provision he had been ordered to pay to his former wife. The Court of Cassation dismissed the applicant’s appeal.
Inadmissible under Article 14 combined with Article 6 § 1 – The proceedings before the Florida court concerned the applicant’s civil rights, in particular his marital status. He had applied to the tribunal de grande instance in France to enforce the judgment pronounced in Florida. That court, the Court of Appeal and the Court of Cassation had all found against him, based on the fact that his former wife was a French national and the French Civil Code provided for the exemption of French nationals from the jurisdiction of foreign courts, and also because the applicant had attempted to circumvent the applicable rules of procedure. In order for a foreign court judgment to be enforceable in France, a prior application had to be made for authority to execute it. In such cases the European Court verified the lawfulness of the procedure followed before the foreign courts from the standpoint of Article 6 and examined the rules in force in the contracting States concerning jurisdiction, to make sure they did not infringe any of the rights protected by the Convention. The applicant’s complaint concerned the conformity of the French Civil Code with fundamental rights and the application of the Civil Code in his case. The refusal to authorise the execution of the United States court’s judgments amounted to an interference with the applicant’s right to a fair hearing. As a general rule, however, a person should not complain about a situation they had helped to bring about by their own inaction. The applicant admitted that he had let the deadline for appealing against the French court’s decision pass. When his petition for a divorce was dismissed in France, he had turned to the American courts with a similar petition after a brief stay in Florida and, when the judgment was pronounced, he had stopped paying the financial contribution the French court had ordered him to pay to his ex-wife even though the American court had declined to rule on that issue and had referred it back to the French court. However, before filing a petition with the United States court and going on to seek the enforcement of the foreign judgment in France, the applicant should have appealed against the judgment of the tribunal de grande instance, to which he had initially chosen to apply for a divorce. The French authorities could therefore not be faulted for having refused to execute a decision apparently designed to circumvent the applicable rules of procedure because of the applicant’s failure to act: manifestly ill-founded.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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