Information Note on the Court’s case-law 186
June 2015
Paradiso and Campanelli v. Italy (referral) - 25358/12
Judgment 27.1.2015 [Section II]
Article 8
Article 8-1
Respect for family life
Respect for private life
Removal of a child born abroad as a result of a surrogacy arrangement entered into by a couple later found to have no biological link with the child: case referred to the Grand Chamber
The applicants are a married couple. In 2006 they obtained authorisation to adopt a child. After unsuccessfully attempting to have a child through in vitro fertilisation, they decided to have recourse to a gestational surrogacy arrangement in order to become parents. To that end, they contacted a Moscow-based clinic specialising in assisted-reproduction techniques and entered into a surrogacy agreement with a Russian company. After successful in vitro fertilisation in May 2010 – supposedly carried out using the second applicant’s sperm – two embryos “belonging to them” were implanted in the womb of a surrogate mother. A baby was born in February 2011. The surrogate mother gave her written consent to the child being registered as the applicants’ son. In accordance with Russian law, the applicants were registered as the baby’s parents. In line with the provisions of the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement for Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents of 5 October 1961 (“the Hague Convention”), an apostille was placed on the Russian birth certificate, which did not refer to the surrogacy arrangement.
In May 2011, having requested that the Italian authorities register the birth certificate, the applicants were placed under investigation for “misrepresentation of civil status” and violation of the adoption legislation, in that they had brought the child into the country in breach of the law and of their authorisation to adopt, which had ruled out the adoption of such a young child. On the same date the public prosecutor requested the opening of proceedings to release the child for adoption, since he was to be considered as having been abandoned. In August 2011 a DNA test was carried out at the court’s request. It showed that, contrary to the applicants’ submissions, no genetic link existed between the second applicant and the child. In October 2011 the minors’ court decided to remove the child from the applicants. Contact was forbidden between the applicants and the child. In April 2013 the court held that it was legitimate to refuse to register the Russian birth certificate and ordered that a new birth certificate be issued, indicating that the child had been born to unknown parents and giving him a new name. The proceedings for the child’s adoption were still pending. The domestic court held that the applicants did not have standing to act in those proceedings.
By a judgment of 27 January 2015 (see Information Note 181), a Chamber of the Court held that the child’s removal had amounted to a breach of Article 8 of the Convention on account, inter alia, of the hasty conclusion that the intended parents would not have been capable of bringing up the child and of the failure to take adequate account of the latter’s interests, in that he had had no legal existence for more than two years.
On 1 June 2015 the case was referred to the Grand Chamber at the Government’s request.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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