18 Sep Removal of a parental authority resulted in a violation of Article 8 of the Convention

In the case of Strand Lobben and Others v. Norway (application no. 37283/13, 10.09.2019) the European Court of Human Rights held that there had been a violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The applicants are T. Strand Lobben and her son, X. The case concerned the domestic authorities’ decision to remove a mother’s parental authority and let foster parents adopt her son. When X was born, Ms Strand Lobben turned to the child welfare authorities for guidance and had accepted an offer to stay at a family centre for an evaluation during the first months of the child’s life. However, a month after the birth she decided to leave the centre. The authorities took the baby into immediate compulsory care and placed him in a foster home on an emergency basis as the centre’s staff had concerns about whether the baby had been receiving enough food to survive. In 2011 the County Social Welfare board, comprised of a jurist, a psychologist and a layperson, decided to remove the mother’s parental authority and authorise adoption.

The Court found in particular that the main reason for the authorities’ actions had been the mother’s inability to care properly for her son, in particular in view of his special needs as a vulnerable child. However, that reasoning had been based on limited evidence as the contact sessions between mother and son after his placement in foster care had been few and far between.

Furthermore, the Court found that no new reports had been ordered to examine the biological mother’s capacity to provide care for X, despite the fact that in the meantime she had married and had another child. In making their decisions, the courts had regard to evidence given by two psychologists who had been commissioned as experts and drawn up reports during the prior proceedings on foster care in 2010, but those experts had not carried out any examinations since. Only one of those reports had been based on actual observation of contact sessions, and then only on two occasions.

In addition, a review of his vulnerability had contained barely any analysis and no explanation as to how he could continue to be vulnerable despite having been in care since he was three weeks’ old. Overall, the domestic authorities had not attempted to carry out a genuine balancing exercise between the interests of the child and his biological family or taken into consideration developments in the mother’s family life. There had thus been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention in respect of both applicants.

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