01 Nov The dismissal of an action to establish paternity lodged outside the time-limit did not breach the Convention

In the case of Lavanchy v. Switzerland (application no. 69997/17, 19.10.2021) the European Court of Human Rights held, by a majority (five votes to two), that there had been no violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The case concerned the Swiss courts’ refusal to allow an exception to the time-limit laid down by domestic law (one year from the date of reaching the age of majority) for bringing an action to establish a legal parent-child relationship, and the consequent dismissal of the applicant’s action seeking to have the relationship with her biological father recorded in the civil-status register. Following the birth of the applicant in 1964, she  was  entered  in  the  register  of  births  as  the  child  of  an unknown  father  and  was  placed  under  the  guardianship  of  the  guardianship  authority  (Tuteur Général). At the age of 25, the applicant decided to trace her father and she successfully found him. The applicant and her father developed a closer relationship. However, she never asked G.Q. to undergo a DNA test or to formally acknowledge his paternity, as she was afraid of damaging their relationship. After her father’s death in 2013 the applicant received notice to appear at the opening of his will, when she learned that she was not legally recognised as his daughter. In 2014 she brought civil proceedings to establish a legal parent-child relationship, requesting that G.Q. be recognised as her father. The results of a DNA test showed that he was indeed her biological father. Nevertheless, the Swiss courts observed that during his lifetime G.Q. had simply acknowledged paternity in 1995 for the purposes of child maintenance following a court settlement in the paternity proceedings under which G.Q. agreed to pay the applicant’s subsistence allowance, and that the applicant had not acted within the one-year period after reaching the age of majority (Article 263 § 1 of the Civil Code). 

The applicant complained of the fact that the Swiss authorities had not acknowledged the existence of a “valid reason” for not complying with the time-limit, and alleged a breach of her right to respect for her private life on that account.

The Court noted that the Swiss courts’ decisions had been carefully reasoned, taking the Court’s case-law into account. In particular, the courts had identified several points during the applicant’s life when she could have consulted the details concerning her parentage in the civil-status register and sought information about the steps to be taken, even after expiry of the time-limit. Those considerations led the courts to conclude that there had been no justification for the applicant’s inactivity over a 31-year period.

The Court therefore considered that the delay on the applicant’s part in bringing proceedings to establish a legal parent-child relationship, as noted by the domestic courts, could not be regarded as justifiable for the purposes of the Court’s case-law. Hence, the Swiss courts had not failed in their obligation to strike a fair balance between the interests at stake.

References from the official website of the European Court of Human Rights