AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF
Application No. 15685/89
by Joan SIBLEY, Kenneth SIBLEY and Duncan SIBLEY
against the United Kingdom
The European Commission of Human Rights sitting in private on
6 March 1991, the following members being present:
MM. C.A. NØRGAARD, President
J.A. FROWEIN
S. TRECHSEL
G. SPERDUTI
E. BUSUTTIL
G. JÖRUNDSSON
A.S. GÖZÜBÜYÜK
A. WEITZEL
J.C. SOYER
H.G. SCHERMERS
H. DANELIUS
Sir Basil HALL
MM. F. MARTINEZ
C.L. ROZAKIS
MM. L. LOUCAIDES
J.C. GEUS
M.P. PELLONPÄÄ
Mr. H.C. KRÜGER, Secretary to the Commission
Having regard to Article 25 of the Convention for the
Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms;
Having regard to the application introduced on 8 August 1989
by Joan SIBLEY, Kenneth SIBLEY and Duncan SIBLEY against the United
Kingdom and registered on 25 October 1989 under file No. 15685/89;
Having regard to the report provided for in Rule 47 of the
Rules of Procedure of the Commission;
Having deliberated;
Decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The facts of the present case, as submitted by the applicants,
may be summarised as follows.
The applicants are United Kingdom citizens born in 1923, 1926
and 1964 respectively. The first two applicants are the parents of
the third. The parents reside in Luton, Bedfordshire; the son resides
in Hitchin, Hertfordshire.
This is their second application to the Commission and
continues their first (No. 11186/84, Dec. 15.3.84) which concerned the
refusal by the applicants' local education authority to provide
selective education in a private, fee-paying school for the third
applicant, in view of available comprehensive education in the
locality. The Commission rejected the applicants' complaint under
Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention as manifestly
ill-founded. The third applicant had been taken into care by the
local authority for a year, as of May 1976, and the parents pursued
various litigious actions in 1983 and 1984 about the boy's education
and sought discovery of documents which might have been relevant for
their claims. These were resisted by the local authority who
considered, inter alia, that the applicants' request for discovery was
only in the vain hope of finding an arguable cause of action against
the County Council and their officers who had been performing their
statutory duties with the most careful consideration. None of the
parents' litigation was successful. It was consistently rejected as
disclosing no reasonable cause of action, frivolous, vexatious and an
abuse of the process of the Court. Amongst the various proceedings
pursued by the parents was an application to the High Court in 1984
against the local education authority and social services, seeking the
removal of the alleged stigma created by their actions, which were
allegedly both negligent and unlawful. This application was struck
out by the Master of the Rolls and the first and second applicants'
appeal and further leave to appeal were refused on 15 March 1984 by
the High Court for the aforementioned reasons.
The son sought to bring his own proceedings, but his claim was
again rejected by the High Court on 19 March 1986 as being frivolous,
vexatious, an abuse of the process of the Court and disclosing no
reasonable cause of action. Leave to appeal was refused by the Court
of Appeal on 23 February 1989.
The parents have made further requests for access to the local
authority's files on the family since 1969, pursuant to the Access to
Personal Files Act 1987. They were informed by the local authority on
24 May 1989 that access to personal files had only been authorised by
this legislation in respect of records compiled after 1 April 1989.
Since this date no information about the family had been recorded.
The applicants apparently continue to bombard the competent
authorities with requests for access to earlier hand-written files on
them.
COMPLAINTS
The parents complain that they have been denied discovery of
documents held by the local authority about the whole family and are,
therefore, unable to refute any statements made against them. They
invoke the right to respect for private and family life ensured by
Article 8 of the Convention. They also complain of the use of the
Children and Young Persons Act 1969 by the local authority in taking
their son into care and allegedly depriving them of any possibility of
being party to the court proceedings involved and of defending their
position.
The son complains of being unable to see all the files held by
the local authority on him whilst he was in their care in 1976 and
1977. He also complains of being placed in a school for maladjusted
children during part of this period by the local authority. He
invokes Article 8 of the Convention, as well as Article 2 of Protocol
No. 1 to the Convention. He submits that he requires disclosures of
the local authority's files in order to establish that he was wrongly
placed in unsuitable educational institutions.
THE LAW
The applicants have complained of a denial of access to local
authority files concerning a period in the mid-1970's when the third
applicant was placed in the care of the local education authority for
educational purposes. They further complain of the care proceedings
themselves. They have invoked the right to respect for private and
family life ensured by Article 8 (Art. 8) of the Convention. The third
applicant has also invoked his right to education ensured by Article 2
of Protocol No. 1 (P1-2) to the Convention.
However, the Commission is unable to deal with the complaints
brought by the first and second applicants because they have failed to
observe the six months' rule laid down in Article 26 (Art. 26) of the
Convention for the following reasons: The basis of their complaint is
that the taking of the third applicant into care in the mid-1970's was
allegedly unjustified, as were all apparent interferences with the
family's life by the education and social services of the local
authority concerned. To this end they have continuously sought access
to local authority files on the family with a view to finding some
basis on which to mount a successful civil claim for damages.
The parents' grievances against the local authority were
ultimately determined and rejected, including their request for
discovery of documents, by the refusal of leave to appeal on 15 March
1984. These applicants have continuously sought to revive those
proceedings by their persistent letters to the local authority
requesting sight of the local authority's files on the whole family
since 1969. Moreover the third applicant brought his own claim about
the care order proceedings ten years before. The Commission considers
that such attempts by the first and second applicants to re-open the
domestic proceedings in the guise of repeated requests for access to
files do not create a claim of a continuing breach of Article 8
(Art. 8) of the Convention. It finds therefore that the final
decision for the purposes of Article 26 (Art. 26) of the Convention in
their case was that of the High Court on 15 March 1984, whereas their
application was not lodged with the Commission until 8 August 1989.
In these circumstances, their part of the application must be rejected
under Article 27 para. 3 (Art. 27-3) of the Convention.
As regards the third applicant's claim that his right to
education under Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 (P1-2) has been violated, the
Commission finds that this aspect of the case is also to be rejected
under Articles 26 and 27 para. 3 (Art. 26, 27-3) of the Convention for
non-observance of the six months' rule as his secondary education was
apparently completed several years before lodging his application to
the Commission.
Finally, as regards the third applicant's claim that he is
denied access to local authority files for his period in their care
between 1976 and 1977, the Commission finds no evidence of an
interference with the applicants private and family life, ensured by
Article 8 (Art. 8) of the Convention, by virtue of the fact that his own
litigation against the local authority was dismissed summarily, as was
his request for discovery of documents, with a final decision of the
High Court on 23 February 1989. The actual interference with the
third applicant's private and family life occurred in 1976-1977 when
he was taken into care. He was the subject of bitter litigation
between his parents and the local authority, during which the local
authority's reasons for and evidence in support of their actions was
thoroughly examined by the competent courts. The basis of the local
authority's case was revealed to the parents, who could have explained
matters to him. The local authority files are not therefore the only
record of what happened at the relevant time and access to them is
apparently not primordial for the third applicant's personal
development (cf. No. 10454/83, Gaskin v. the United Kingdom, Comm.
Report 13.11.87 paras. 89-91). It follows that this aspect of the
application must be rejected as being manifestly ill-founded within
the meaning of Article 27 para. 2 (Art. 27-2) of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Commission, unanimously,
DECLARES THE APPLICATION INADMISSIBLE.
Secretary to the Commission President of the Commission
(H.C. KRÜGER) (C.A. NØRGAARD)
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