89.  The Government emphasised that the right to maintain personal relations and direct contact with both parents on a regular basis is, first and foremost, a right of a child and not of her/his parents. The parents' right of access to their children are protected but should not be given priority over a child's best interests. Under Article <mask> of the Convention a balance should be struck between the interests of all members of the family and, when those interests are at variance, the interests of the child should prevail. Legal regulations, and in particular law enforcement procedures, should not bring about results contrary to the child's best interest. The Government were of the opinion that in the present case the interests and rights of the child might have been violated if the father's access to his daughter had been enforced by more coercive measures than those actually applied.


142.  The applicant went on to submit that until 2009, when the 1988 Act had been amended, he had not had at his disposal any remedy in respect of the alleged breach of his rights under Article <mask> of the Convention. The existence of such a remedy was not certain even after that amendment, because there was no reliable mechanism allowing those concerned to learn whether they had been subjected to secret surveillance.


49.  The Government agreed with the Chamber’s reasoning and conclusion to the effect that there had been no violation of Article <mask> of the Convention in the present case. They noted that the impugned legislation had been passed in order to prevent inequality caused by varying administrative practices throughout the country and in order to set coherent preconditions for legal gender recognition. The bill had initially required that the person requesting legal gender recognition be unmarried or not in a registered partnership and had not allowed his or her marriage or registered partnership to continue in another legally recognised form. This had been seen as unreasonable during the legislative procedure and therefore the conversion mechanism had been introduced into the provision. Since the entry into force of the Transsexuals (Confirmation of Gender) Act, at least fifteen marriages had been turned into registered partnerships and sixteen registered partnerships into marriages. In nine cases the spouses had had children together and in none of these cases had the legal parent-child relationship changed.


88.  The Government agreed that some interference with the applicant’s right to respect for his family life had occurred in the case at issue. However, there had been no violation of Article 8 since, during the period in question, the Regional Court had allowed the applicant’s brother to visit him twice in prison. The applicant had also been permitted to make two phone calls in June 1996 and one call in August 1996. In addition, the Government stressed that both the applicant’s mother and his brother had been witnesses in the proceedings against him. In this respect they submitted that the restrictions imposed on the applicant’s contact with his mother had been justified by the need to secure the proper conduct of the proceedings. They averred that the applicant could have exchanged correspondence with his mother. Moreover, the restrictions imposed on the applicant had been quashed immediately after it had become clear that the applicant’s mother would not testify as a witness in the judicial proceedings. In sum, the domestic authorities maintained a fair balance of proportionality between the need to secure the process of obtaining evidence and the applicant’s right to respect for his family guaranteed under Article <mask> of the Convention.


107.  The Government considered that there was no family life within the meaning of Article <mask> of the Convention between the first applicant and Mrs Saleh and their children as Mr Al-Nashif had not proven that he had been legally married to Mrs Saleh and had often been away from the family home as he had contracted a second marriage. Those facts were allegedly indicative of the lack of an emotional or family link between Mr Al-Nashif and his children.


64.  The applicant further made two complaints concerning his right to respect for his correspondence. He firstly complained of the fact that a postal parcel sent to him to Gospić Prison on 30 August 2004 by his parents had never been delivered. Secondly, he complained that some six to eight letters sent by him from the prison had never been forwarded to the addressees. He relied on Article <mask> of the Convention, the relevant parts of which read as follows:


79.  The Government submit that the rules in force at the relevant time in relation to detainees’ contacts with the outside world were compatible with the Convention. On this point, the Government contend that the new National Ordinance on Prisons, which contains regulations on detainees’ outside contacts by letter, telephone and visits, as well as the grounds on which a detainee’s right to respect for his correspondence may be restricted, fully meets the requirements of Article <mask> of the Convention.


83.  The applicants complained about the refusal of their requests to have the indication of gender on their birth certificates corrected on the grounds that persons making such a request had to substantiate it by demonstrating that they actually suffered from a gender identity disorder and that the change in their appearance was irreversible. They criticised the fact that the latter requirement meant that transgender persons who, like them, wished to have the indication of their gender amended in their civil-status documents were compelled to undergo prior surgery or treatment entailing irreversible sterility. The applicants relied on Article <mask> of the Convention, which provides:


38.  The applicant claimed 268,000 euros (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary damage: (a) EUR 168,000 for suffering and distress due to violation of his right to family life under Article <mask> of the Convention, (b) EUR 50,000 for suffering and distress for the unjustified duration of the proceedings and (c) EUR 50,000 for suffering, distress and psychological damage in respect of the violation of the right to fair trial.


31.  The applicants further complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the proceedings regarding the prohibition of use order were unfair. Relying on Article <mask> of the Convention they invoked that the prohibition of use order violated their right to family life. Furthermore, the applicants complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 about the refusal of the building permit. They finally alleged a violation of Articles 2 and 3 of Protocol No. 7 without further substantiation.


31.  The Government stressed that, since the applicant’s stay in Norway had been unlawful, the impugned expulsion did not constitute an interference with her right to respect for her family life for the purposes of Article <mask> of the Convention. The question was rather whether the Norwegian authorities “were under a duty to allow the .., applicant to reside” in Norway, “thus enabling [her] to maintain and develop family life” in that country (see, Rodrigues da Silva and Hoogkamer v. the Netherlands, no. 50435/99, § 38, ECHR 2006‑I). In other words, the case should be regarded as “one involving an allegation of failure on the part of the respondent State to comply with a positive obligation” (ibid.).


199.  The applicant complained under Article <mask> of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention of the interim seizure of her flat. The Court observes that on 11 March 2002 the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk Town Court lifted the seizure of the applicant's flat, following which she waived her relevant court claim at the domestic level. It also does not appear that she has ever attempted to bring court proceedings for compensation for the allegedly unlawful interim seizure of her flat. The applicant therefore failed to exhaust domestic remedies and her relevant complaint must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention.


71.  The applicant contended that his eviction from the site interfered unjustifiably with his rights under Article <mask> of the Convention, as being unnecessary and disproportionate, in particular as he was not given the opportunity to challenge in a court the allegations made against him and his family. He denied that he or members of his family living on the plot had breached any term of the licence as alleged by Council officers and stated that he had no control over the conduct of visitors to the site, such as his adult sons or Michael Maloney. There was significant support for his family from other occupiers of the site which contradicted the situation as described by the Council. He disputed that it was reasonable or proportionate to evict him and his family for reasons relating to other adults. The Council failed to use other methods to control the alleged misbehaviour, such as injunctions or committal proceedings against those adults who were committing the damage or nuisance and appeared to make no distinction concerning the occupation of the two plots, 35 and 36. Nor when the applicant gave undertakings in court on 14 April 2000 did the Council apply for enforcement measures in respect of alleged breaches.


34.  The applicants complained that covert listening devices were used by the police to monitor and record their conversations at a flat, that information was obtained by the police concerning the use of a telephone at the flat and that listening devices were used while they were at the police station to obtain voice samples. They relied on Article <mask> of the Convention, the relevant parts of which provide as follows:


120.  The Government submitted that the applicants had not exhausted domestic remedies with regard to their complaint under Article <mask> of the Convention. In the first place, they had not raised that complaint in substance before the domestic courts; while the applicant Hreiðar Már Sigurðsson had made a passing reference to Article 8 in his appeal to the Supreme Court, the applicants had in their written pleadings relied principally on Article 6 of the Convention. The Supreme Court’s judgment did not indicate that it had addressed directly the question whether the phone tapping had infringed Article 8 and the summary of the applicants’ oral pleadings did not mention that this had been argued at the main hearing. Furthermore, the applicants had not brought any other proceedings, such as a civil action against the State seeking damages for the violation of their rights under Article 8. In their submissions in reply to the applicants’ observations, the Government indicated that the applicant Hreiðar Már Sigurðsson had lodged a civil action against the State in the District Court on 15 November 2016. They subsequently informed the Court that in a judgment of 30 April 2018 the District Court had awarded him ISK 300,000 in respect of telephone tapping which had taken place after the applicant had been told that he was a suspect but had rejected his claim as regards conversations with his lawyer on the ground that they had not been listened to beyond for the purpose of identifying who was speaking.


28.  The applicant complained that his allegations in respect of Article 3 also gave rise to a violation of Article <mask> of the Convention. In addition, he complained about restrictions on telephone calls. As regards the latter, the applicant submitted that he had often been under pressure from other inmates to terminate his telephone conversations before the allotted time had expired. He also alleged that his correspondence had been limited to certain identified people.


97.  The Government submitted, firstly, that the first applicant had had an effective remedy for his complaint under Article <mask> of the Convention. In particular, he could have lodged a cassation appeal with the Supreme Court of Russia. The Government further submitted that the Russian authorities had given all possible diplomatic assistance to the first applicant in recovering his daughter from Uzbekistan. However, they had been unable to influence the judicial proceedings there. The first applicant had not appealed against the Uzbek authorities’ decisions to appoint X’s grandmother as her guardian and to deprive him of parental authority. Nor had he applied to the Russian courts with a request to restore his parental authority.


209.  The Government did not dispute that its refusal of 25 March 2005 to return the body of Aslan Maskhadov (see paragraphs 103-105 above) constituted an interference with the applicants’ rights to private and family life protected by Article <mask> of the Convention. The Court sees no reason to hold otherwise. It notes that the decision was taken in accordance with Article 3 of Decree no. 164 dated 20 March 2003 and section 16 (1) of the Suppression of the Terrorism Act, which precluded the competent authorities from returning the bodies of terrorists who died as a result of the interception of a terrorist act.


24.  The applicants submitted in reply that the Federal Supreme Court did not have jurisdiction to hear an appeal in their case because of the jurisdictional bar in section 83(c)(3) of the Federal Supreme Court Act. The judgment relied on by the Government had been given after they had lodged the present complaint and did not concern a request for temporary residence. Such an appeal would have lacked prospects of success even if it had been declared admissible by the Federal Supreme Court, which, in its well‑established case-law, did not recognise that persons granted temporary residence in Switzerland could invoke Article <mask> of the Convention.


80.  The applicant complained under Article <mask> of the Convention that the investigative authorities and the command of the Unit disseminated offensive information about his son’s personal life. However, the Court notes that the applicant did not sue anyone for defamation, thus failing to exhaust domestic remedies, as required by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention. This complaint must, therefore, be rejected in accordance with Article 35 § 4.


14.  The applicants complained of the maintenance in force of Article 209 of the Criminal Code, which criminalised homosexual acts of adult men with consenting adolescents between the ages of 14 and 18, and of their convictions under that provision. Relying on Article <mask> of the Convention taken alone and in conjunction with Article 14, they alleged that their right to respect for their private life had been violated and that the contested provision was discriminatory, as heterosexual or lesbian relations between adults and adolescents in the same age bracket were not punishable.


131.  The Government seemed to suggest that the applicant should not be considered to have a right to enjoy family life with M. due to his alleged non-payment of child support. The Court observes that the applicant was acquitted of the charges brought against him in this connection and that in any event this argument, which was not even relied on by the domestic authorities, could not be decisive in assessing the nature of the tie between the applicant and M.. Having regard to the facts of the case, the Court therefore considers that the tie between the applicant and M., who are a father and his daughter, falls within the scope of “family life” within the meaning of Article <mask> of the Convention.


54.  The Government acknowledged that the search of the applicant’s home interfered with his right to respect for his private life. They submitted that it was justifiable under the second paragraph of Article <mask> of the Convention as being necessary in a democratic society for the prevention of disorder or crime. The Government further submitted that the search warrant was executed in compliance with the procedural requirements set out in Articles 227, 228 and 230 of the CCP.


49.  The applicants alleged that the school authorities had failed to organise a class in ethics for the third applicant and complained about the absence of a mark in his school reports in the space reserved for “religion/ethics”. They claimed that the third applicant had been subjected to discrimination and harassment for not having followed religious education classes. The applicants invoked Articles 9 and 14 of the Convention. The Court raised of its own motion a complaint under Article <mask> of the Convention, namely whether the facts of the case disclose a breach of the State's positive obligation to ensure effective respect for the applicants' private life within the meaning of that provision.


27.  The Government did not deny that the notion of private life, which is also referred to in Article <mask> of the Convention, could sometimes encompass information enabling a person's physical or social identity to be established. They observed that in Gaskin v. the United Kingdom (judgment of 7 July 1989, Series A no. 160), the applicant, who had been taken into care at a very early age, wished to consult the confidential case records that had been compiled by the local authorities containing reports by everyone connected with the care proceedings. He was not able to gain access to all the information in his file as some of the contributors refused to provide him with information they had given in confidence. In the present case, the French State had not refused to furnish the applicant with information but had taken into account her mother's refusal from the beginning to allow her identity to be disclosed. As in Gaskin, the application in the present case concerned two competing interests: the applicant's interest in finding out her origins and the interest of a woman who from the outset did not wish to be regarded as the applicant's mother in preserving her private life. However, the applicant's request did not concern information on “highly personal aspects of [her] childhood, development and history”, as her aim was to make contact with her siblings, whose existence she had only discovered on becoming an adult and whom she had never met. The Government said in conclusion that, as it stood, the applicant's request did not come within the scope of “private life” within the meaning of Article 8 of the Convention, as it concerned information relating to a natural family from which she had been separated since birth following her mother's decision to abandon her.


26.  The applicant argued that the measure constituted an interference with his rights under Article <mask> of the Convention, which had also been conceded by the Austrian authorities. However, when applying the relevant provisions of the 1992 Aliens Act, the domestic authorities had wrongly found that the measure was “necessary in a democratic society”. In particular it did not correspond to a “pressing social need” for the prevention of disorder or crime. Unlike the administrative authorities, the Juvenile Court, by suspending the major part of the sentence, had obviously made a positive prognosis in respect of the applicant. The Juvenile Court had taken into account the applicant’s young age of eighteen years, the short period of time during which he had committed the offences, namely two and a half months, together with the fact that the applicant had no previous criminal record. Further, the administrative authorities had grossly disregarded the applicant’s high degree of integration in Austria, namely his lawful residence and that of his family for years, as well as his school education and completion of a vocational training on the one hand, and the lack of any family ties with Serbia and Montenegro after his grandparents’ death on the other. Thus, the imposition of a residence prohibition of an unlimited duration was disproportionate to the aims pursued.


69.  The applicant asserted that her representatives had spent 32 hours each at the rate of EUR 50 on the Court proceedings. In support of this claim, the applicant submitted a contract dated 14 February 2017 concluded with Mr I. Khatiashvili. The latter document specified that the applicant was to pay the relevant sum to Mr Khatiashvili if the European Court established a violation of her rights under Article <mask> of the Convention. As regards the applicant’s second representative, Ms L. Mukhashavria, the applicant only submitted the first page of a supposed contract.


70.  The Government contended, as they did at the admissibility stage, that the applicants had not exhausted domestic remedies as required by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention as they had not sought redress by means of an action under Article 11 et seq. of the Civil Code as regards the alleged violation of Article <mask> of the Convention. In the Government's view, that remedy was effective within the meaning of the Court's case-law as it gave the applicants the opportunity to have the unjustified interference with their personal rights stopped and also to obtain financial compensation for any non-pecuniary damage which they may have suffered. That remedy was thus also capable of remedying the negative consequences of the protracted length of the proceedings complained of.


35.  The applicant claimed under Article <mask> of the Convention that his prison sentence had interrupted his family life and prevented him from taking care of his sick wife. He further claimed that his unconditional prison sentence in the current case meant that he also had had to serve two-thirds of his other two sentences and this had resulted in increased time in prison.


83.  The Government maintained that the applicant companies had failed to exhaust domestic remedies. Although the applicant companies had referred to Article <mask> of the Convention in their appeal to the Supreme Court, they had not argued that there had been a violation of that provision. They had merely maintained that section 4-10 of the Tax Assessment Act had to be interpreted in the light of Article 8. In this connection, the Government referred to certain passages in the applicant companies’ additional pleadings to the Supreme Court dated 3 October 2007 (apparently referring to those of 6 July 2007, quoted at paragraph 37 above).


46.  The applicant submitted that the employment tribunals had carried out an insufficient assessment and balancing of the interests at stake. This was consistent with an automatic judicial policy that existed in such matters for the benefit of the Churches, which, in his view, enjoyed a privileged status in German law that was not granted to any other charity-type association. His rights to respect for his private life or his private sphere had not been examined by the employment tribunals. In the applicant’s submission, Article <mask> of the Convention conferred on him the right to discontinue a particular way of life and to begin a new one. He argued that, whilst he did not call into question the right of the Churches to manage their affairs autonomously, that right could not go as far as forcing their employees to observe precepts outside the occupational sphere. He asserted that the employment tribunals had extended their case-law in a totally unforeseeable manner, as until then a dismissal had only been endorsed in the event of remarriage, and not on account of a private extramarital relationship. In view of the large number of ecclesiastical precepts, there was a lack of foreseeability in this connection and the decision to dismiss ultimately depended solely on the view of each human resources manager. The role of the employment tribunal was thus limited to upholding the wishes of the employing Church. According to the applicant, as a consequence of this tendency the employer and the employment tribunal were increasingly scrutinising the employee’s private life in order to establish and assess the facts on which the dismissal was based. Moreover, the fact that a particular employee failed to comply with certain ecclesiastical precepts to the letter would not undermine the credibility of the Church, but would merely be a manifestation of the individual’s human condition.


83.  The Government argued that it had been open to the applicants to complain to the courts about their allocation to penal facilities located outside their home region, in accordance with the provisions contained in Chapter 25 of the Code of Civil Procedure. Since they had not had recourse to the above remedy, their complaint had to be dismissed for failure to exhaust domestic remedies. In the alternative, the Government argued that the applicants had failed to comply with the six-month requirement for lodging their complaint. They considered that the applicants’ allocation to penal facilities had been a “single moment” decision and did not give rise to a continuous situation for the purposes of calculating the six-month rule under Article 35 § 1 of the Convention. The Government further submitted on the merits of the complaint that the applicants’ allocation to remote penal facilities had amounted to an interference with their rights under Article <mask> of the Convention. However, despite the fact that the legal grounds for allocating persons convicted, as the applicants, under Articles 208 (membership of an illegal armed group) and 317 (attempt on the life of a law-enforcement officer) of the Criminal Code to penal facilities determined by the FSIN (Article 73 § 4 of the CES), had been introduced several months after the applicants’ actual transfer, the interference had nevertheless been in accordance with the law, had been necessary and had not amounted to a violation of Article 8 of the Convention. The applicants had been given long prison sentences, to be served in strict-regime penal facilities. However, at the relevant time there had been no such penal facilities in the Chechen Republic, which was why the applicants had been allocated to penal facilities in other regions. Furthermore, had the applicants remained in the Chechen Republic to serve their sentences, it would have created a serious risk to public order and safety in view of the criminal situation in the region at the material time.


65.   The Government argued that there had been no interference with the applicant’s right to respect for her family life. All forms of family relationship had been extinguished at the latest at the time of the adoption. Citing Schneider v. Germany, no. 17080/07, § 80, 15 September 2011, the Government pointed out that biological kinship between a biological parent and child alone, without any further legal and factual elements indicating the existence of a close personal relationship, was insufficient to attract the protection of Article <mask> of the Convention. The Government noted that in the case at hand the children never lived with the applicant.


29.  The Government accepted that the custody proceedings at issue constituted an interference with the applicant's rights under Article <mask> of the Convention. They argued, however, that the obligation of national authorities to take measures to facilitate contact by a non-custodial parent with children pending, or after divorce, was not absolute. In the present case, the Austrian courts were not to be blamed for their inactivity as initially, under the Turkish legislation applicable to the proceedings at issue, no decision on the custody could be taken since such decision had to be taken in the framework of divorce proceedings which were at the time still pending. After the applicant's new request for custody of F. in June 1996, the courts acted without delay. The Government further pointed out that a transfer of F.'s custody from his father to the applicant could at no time be considered as granted. The procedural steps taken in the proceedings at issue exclusively served the best interest of the children.


29.  The applicant complained that the domestic courts’ refusal to allow him to challenge Mr M.’s paternity and to have his own paternity legally established violated his right to respect for his private and family life as protected by Article <mask> of the Convention. He complained, in particular, that the relevant legislation, as construed by the family courts, let the social family’s interests generally prevail over the biological father’s interests, without allowing for an examination of the specific circumstances of the case. He further complained under Article 8, read in conjunction with Article 6 of the Convention, that the family courts had failed to examine sufficiently whether there existed an enduring relationship between the child and her legal father. He further complained that the alleged excessive length of the proceedings had predetermined their outcome.


171.  The applicants alleged that the searches carried out in their houses during and after the abduction of their relatives were unlawful and constituted a violation of their right to respect for home. They further complained that the disappearance of their close relatives after their detention by the State authorities caused them distress and anguish which had amounted to a violation of their right to family life. They referred to Article <mask> of the Convention, which provides:


96.  The Government also submitted that, owing to his frequent business trips abroad, the applicant usually spent more than half a year outside Lithuania, away from his wife and daughter. Accordingly, the gravity of the applicant’s situation could not be compared to the gravity of the situations in other cases involving immigration questions which the Court had examined under Article <mask> of the Convention.


37.  The Government pointed out that it is not per se incompatible with the Convention to limit access to reopening of paternity cases, in particular when the rules are reasonable and flexible like those in the Danish legislation and they pursue the legitimate aim of safeguarding the interest of the child, including providing stability and legal rights deriving from having a father registered. In the present case, all those concerned were heard and the cases were thoroughly examined by the domestic courts. The High Court’s final decision that the requirements set out in sections 24 and 25 for a reopening had not been fulfilled was taken in what it considered to be the best interests of the children. In these circumstances, and having regard to the margin of appreciation and the principle of subsidiarity, the Government maintained that the refusal to reopen the paternity cases was not in violation of Article <mask> of the Convention.


59.  The Government submitted that the proceedings brought by the applicant had fully complied with the requirements of Article <mask> of the Convention. The courts had thoroughly and actively examined the case, admitting a number of expert reports and other evidence, but finding no medical malpractice. They had dealt with all relevant points, including whether the operation had been necessary, what was the proper approach by the operating team if the medical imaging tests were inconclusive, and whether the applicant had given informed consent to the operation and more generally whether she had been properly advised.


53.  The applicant pointed out that while the Government had emphasised the difficulties in reconstructing the facts of an act which had happened behind closed doors, they had not taken into real consideration the positive obligation of the State to protect her private and family life. Her right to physical integrity had required the domestic authorities to decide on her civil disputes with Gy.B. within a reasonable time. The applicant further argued that a remedy which was slow could not be regarded effective. In her opinion, Article <mask> of the Convention included her right to use her home being secure in her person and without disturbance.


50.  The Government accepted that the non-enforcement of the custody orders concerned the applicants’ family life within the meaning of Article <mask> of the Convention, but considered that the measures taken by the authorities had been adequate and effective. In particular, a complex collaborative process between all the State actors involved in the enforcement proceeding had been developed throughout the proceedings. The authorities – the bailiff’s office and the courts – had acted diligently to assist the applicants in the enforcement proceedings and had taken into account the whole situation and the interests of all the parties concerned. The children’s constant and unwavering refusal to live with their mother had contributed significantly to the non-enforcement of the court orders. In sensitive cases such as those concerning the custody of children, enforcement required a softer and more sensitive approach.


79.  The applicant further emphasised that the interference complained of had not been “in accordance with the law” within the meaning of Article <mask> of the Convention. Section 4a of the 1993 Act allowed a termination where the continuation of a pregnancy constituted a threat to the mother’s life or health. Hence, the applicant had had a legal right under Polish law to have an abortion on health grounds.


32.  The applicant complained about the conditions required to obtain sodium pentobarbital, namely a medical prescription based on a thorough psychiatric assessment. He alleged that, since those conditions could not be met in his case, the right to which he considered himself entitled, namely that of choosing the time and manner of his death, was not respected. He submitted that, in an exceptional situation such as his, access to the necessary medical products for suicide ought to be guaranteed by the State. He relied on Article <mask> of the Convention, which provides:


30.  The applicant argued that the domestic authorities were under an obligation to protect his right to reputation pursuant to Article <mask> of the Convention. In his view, the rulings of the domestic courts were also incompatible with Article 14 of the Convention. In particular, he pointed out that the domestic courts had based their decision to dismiss his case on his sexual orientation. He further submitted that the wording of the domestic courts’ decisions had been discriminatory.


48.  The applicant further complained under Article <mask> of the Convention that the colony staff had opened and inspected his letters, and had not dispatched them to addressees. He also complained under Article 7 of the Convention that the Regional Court had incorrectly calculated his sentence. The Court has examined those complaints, as submitted by the applicant. However, having regard to all the material in its possession, and in so far as these complaints fall within its competence, the Court finds that they do not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms set out in the Convention or its Protocols. It follows that this part of the application must be rejected as being manifestly ill-founded, pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.


18.  The applicants complained of the maintenance in force of Article 209 of the Criminal Code, which criminalised homosexual acts of adult men with consenting adolescents between the ages of 14 and 18, and of their convictions under that provision. Relying on Article <mask> of the Convention taken alone and in conjunction with Article 14, they alleged that their right to respect for their private life had been violated and that the contested provision was discriminatory, as heterosexual or lesbian relations between adults and adolescents in the same age bracket were not punishable.


106.  The applicants submitted that the relationship established between them and their respective adopted daughters constituted a family tie, protected by Article <mask> of the Convention, which was therefore applicable in the present case. They referred to Abdulaziz, Cabales and Balkandali v. the United Kingdom (judgment of 28 May 1985, Series A no. 94), Eriksson v. Sweden (judgment of 22 June 1989, Series A no. 156), Marckx v. Belgium (judgment of 13 June 1979, Series A no. 31) and Ignaccolo-Zenide v. Romania (no. 31679/96, ECHR 2000-I).


14.  The applicant complained that the national authorities’ refusal to allow her to bear only her maiden name after her marriage amounted to a breach of Article <mask> of the Convention. She also contended that the fact that Turkish law allows married men to bear only their own surname after marriage and not married women constituted discrimination on grounds of sex and was incompatible with Article 14 of the Convention. The applicant further submitted that the Turkish domestic courts, by disregarding the Ünal Tekeli v. Turkey judgment (cited above) given by the Court and failing to make the necessary amendments to the domestic law, had breached her right to an effective remedy under Article 13 of the Convention.


85.  The applicant complained that, by failing to secure his regular contacts with his son, which had been necessary to maintain family ties between them, the domestic authorities had breached their positive obligation to respect his family life. In particular, the applicant complained that in the period between the time his son had been only two months old and the time he had turned eighteen, he had seen him only three times. He relied on Article <mask> of the Convention, which reads as follows:


191.  The applicant argued that execution of the extradition order against him would entail “significant and irreparable” consequences to his relationship with his wife and children, especially his daughter who required health care in Russia. The extradition order and judicial review decisions had not properly taken into account various aspects relating to his family life. In particular, the appeal court provided no reasoning in response to his related arguments. His extradition would not pursue any of the aims set out in Article 8 § 2 of the Convention, the Government’s reference to their other international obligations being insufficient to outweigh their obligations under Article <mask> of the Convention.


98.  The Government submitted that the case revealed no violation of Article <mask> of the Convention. While they accepted that the decisions by the Social Council of 2 October 2002 and 10 September 2003 interfered with the applicants' right to respect for their private and family life, they contended that the decisions, and the judgments upon appeal, had been in conformity with domestic law as they had aimed at protecting the children's physical and mental health and their social development.


30.  The applicant complained under Article <mask> of the Convention of inaction on the part of the local authorities in Valencia, in particular the City Council, which had failed to put a stop to the night-time disturbances. In particular, he claimed that the City Council had not fulfilled its positive duty to take reasonable and appropriate measures to secure the applicant’s rights under Article 8, which provides:


68.  The Government pointed out that the applicant had been under secret surveillance between 23 March and 7 August 2007 and subsequently from 17 September 2007, and that he had learnt this when the indictment had been lodged on 10 March 2009. Accordingly, in the Government’s view, the six-month time-limit had started running from that time and there had been no reason for the applicant to wait for the outcome of the criminal proceedings. Furthermore, the Government pointed out that in his constitutional complaint the applicant had not expressly relied on the provisions of Article <mask> of the Convention and Article 35 of the Constitution. He had only complained about the alleged unlawfulness of the secret surveillance orders and the use of their results in the criminal proceedings against him.


25.  The Government claimed that inappropriate blood sampling which led to the DNA test being declared inadmissible did not amount to an interference with the applicant’s right guaranteed by Article <mask> of the Convention. Under Article 87 § 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure, a court could order a second test if it doubted the accuracy of the previous one; however the applicant had failed to request a new test.


75.  The Government contested the facts as presented by the applicant. The visit had not been organised to take place at a time when no visits were allowed. On the contrary, a specific visiting time had been previously agreed upon with the hospital. No medical procedures had been performed on the applicant’s daughter during his visit and he himself had asked to leave the hospital (see paragraph 19 above). However, in the event that procedures had been performed on other patients and the applicant had been asked to leave the room, the Government held that this clearly would have taken precedence over the applicant’s visiting rights. It was very unlikely that permission to touch his daughter had been granted (see paragraphs 18‑20 above). Against that background, no interference with rights protected under Article <mask> of the Convention had taken place with respect to the timing and duration of the visit, or as regards the applicant’s ability to touch the child. In any event, even if there had been such an interference, it had been proportionate.


38.  The Government submitted that the applicant had not in fact been subjected to secret surveillance, and on that basis argued that he was not a victim of an interference with his rights under Article <mask> of the Convention. The Court observes that it has in a number of previous cases held that to the extent that a law institutes a system of surveillance under which all persons in a country can potentially have their mail and telecommunications monitored, without their ever knowing this unless there has been either some indiscretion, a deliberate leak, or subsequent notification, it directly affects all users or potential users of the postal and telecommunication services in that country. In all of those cases the Court accepted that an individual may claim to be the victim of a violation occasioned by the mere existence of secret measures or of legislation permitting them, without having to allege that such measures were in fact applied to him or her (see Klass and Others v. Germany, 6 September 1978, §§ 30‑38, Series A no. 28; Malone v. the United Kingdom, 2 August 1984, § 64, Series A no. 82; Weber and Saravia v. Germany, (dec.), no. 54934/00, §§ 78‑79, ECHR 2006‑XI; Association for European Integration and Human Rights and Ekimdzhiev v. Bulgaria, no. 62540/00, §§ 58‑59, 28 June 2007; Liberty and Others v. the United Kingdom, no. 58243/00, § 57, 1 July 2008; and Iordachi and Others v. Moldova, no. 25198/02, § 34, 10 February 2009).


36.  The applicant submitted that under the Court’s case‑law sometimes the mere existence of laws authorising secret surveillance could render a person victim of an alleged breach of Article <mask> of the Convention. It was not necessary to establish that he had in fact been subjected to such surveillance. The letter of the National Security Agency which said that it had no information that special means of surveillance had been used against the applicant was therefore irrelevant. In any event, that letter did not constitute full proof that the applicant had not been subjected to secret surveillance. When he had sought information on that issue in 2001 and 2003, the Special Surveillance Means Act 1997 had allowed a number of authorities to request the use of special means of surveillance against a person. The National Security Agency, which had been created long after that, in 2008, was the successor of only some of those authorities. A 2009 letter in which the Agency affirmed that it had no information that the applicant had been subjected to secret surveillance could not therefore show that other authorities had not sought to have the applicant subjected to such surveillance. Moreover, the law continued to be unclear as to the manner in which information about the use of special means of surveillance was to be recorded and stored. It was therefore difficult to accept that the Agency could provide full information on that point. Another reason why the information given by the Agency’s director was of dubious reliability was that by law any information relating to the use of special means of surveillance was classified, and its disclosure to an unauthorised person amounted to a criminal offence. It was therefore hard to believe that the National Security Agency would make public accurate information about the use of special means of surveillance against the applicant. The only authority, apart from a regional court, that would have been able to give comprehensive and reliable information on that point was the National Bureau for Control over Special Surveillance Means, whose creation had been mandated by the 2008 amendments to the 1997 Act.


36.  The Government contended that the application was inadmissible, since the complaint fell outside the scope of Article <mask> of the Convention and, consequently, Article 14. In any event, unlike in Fretté (Fretté v. France, no. 36515/97, § 32, ECHR 2002-I), the refusal to grant the applicant authorisation had not been based, explicitly or implicitly, on the applicant's sexual orientation and could not therefore amount to direct or indirect discrimination based on her homosexuality.


58.  The applicants complained that the searches in their house and the photography studio had not been duly circumscribed by the search warrants which had authorised them, had encompassed many items – such as mobile telephones, computers, flash memory drives and memory cards, and later even the first applicant’s email account – which contained personal data, and had been carried out chaotically. They relied on Article <mask> of the Convention, which provides:


48.  The Government did not see how the refusal to call into question the legal situation established in 1970 could be regarded as an interference with the applicant’s right to respect for his family life within the meaning of Article <mask> of the Convention. They added that if the Court were to consider that there had been an interference, this was prescribed by section 14(2) of the Law of 1972. In their submission, the Montpellier Court of Appeal had been correct in ruling that the transitional provisions of the Law of 1972 prohibited heirs statutorily entitled to the reserved portion from exercising those rights to the detriment of inter vivos gifts granted prior to 1 August 1972, without thereby depriving such heirs of their inheritance rights.


44.  The applicant also complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention about fairness of the proceedings and under Article <mask> of the Convention claiming that his right to respect for his home had been violated. He further complained under Article 14 of the Convention claiming that he had been discriminated against because of his Albanian origin and poor economic situation.


123.  The applicant also complained under Article <mask> of the Convention about his pre-trial detention and claimed that he had been prevented from contacting his family at that time. However, the Court notes that the applicant was released on 30 May 1997, while the present application was only lodged on 25 May 2004. Assuming that the applicant did not have an effective remedy at his disposal to complain about the violations that had allegedly occurred during his pre-trial detention, the starting date of the six‑month period provided by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention is that when the violation ended, namely 30 May 1997.


79.  The Government accepted that Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article <mask> of the Convention applied to the present case. Thus far, the Court’s case-law had considered homosexual relationships to fall within the notion of “private life”, but there might be good reasons to include the relationship of a same-sex couple living together within the scope of “family life”.


22.  The applicant complained that the State had failed to secure her right to respect for private life as a result of the derisory sum of non-pecuniary damages awarded to her, even though the domestic courts had found that a serious violation of her privacy had been committed by the newspaper Lietuvos Rytas. She also argued that the national legislation did not provide an effective remedy from the point of view of Article <mask> of the Convention as it limited the maximum amount of non-pecuniary damages for a breach of privacy by the mass media. The applicant relied on Articles 1, 8 and 13 of the Convention.


45.  The Government submitted that the applicant had not exhausted domestic remedies as required by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention. The Government firstly pointed out that the applicant had not challenged the requisition order by way of administrative recourse under Article 146 of the Constitution but had only challenged the compulsory acquisition order. They argued that in the context of a recourse against the requisition she could have raised and argued the issues under Article <mask> of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 and filed an application for a suspension of the order of requisition pending the final outcome of the recourse in order to prevent the execution of works and demolition of her house until final determination of the recourse at first instance and on appeal. She had not taken any of these steps, however, although she had known that her house had been requisitioned and would be demolished.


53.  The Government argued that the applicant had failed to exhaust domestic remedies in respect of his complaint under Article <mask> of the Convention. In particular, they submitted that it was open to the applicant to challenge before the domestic courts the bailiffs’ actions (or inaction) in enforcing the judgment of 24 January 2014, as well as A.D.’s failure to comply with the above-mentioned judgment. The Government relied in this regard on the 1993 Law on Judicial Review of Measures and Decisions Infringing Individual Rights and Freedoms, and also on Chapter 25 of the Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation (“Challenging decisions, actions or the inaction of State and municipal bodies and officials”), which was replaced, from 15 September 2015, by the Code of Administrative Procedure of the Russian Federation. They furthermore referred to Article 66 § 3 of the Family Code of the Russian Federation, which provided that in the event of non-compliance with a court decision, the parent guilty of non-compliance was to be subjected to measures stipulated by the legislation on administrative offences and enforcement procedure, and that in the event of persistent non-compliance with a court decision, the court could, upon a claim being lodged by the parent residing apart from the child, take a decision to place the child in his or her care, having taken into account the child’s interests and the child’s opinion. However, the applicant had not availed himself of the above remedies and had thus not afforded the domestic authorities an opportunity to address the alleged violations of his rights.


76.  The applicant argued that the ISP had retained his personal data for almost six months without having a clear legal basis for such action and thus in violation of Article <mask> of the Convention. In his observations, submitted on 15 October 2015, the applicant claimed that he had lodged his application with the Court not because the ISP had failed to keep his personal data secret or because it had retained them beyond the statutory time-limit, but because the State had obtained and used the data in question in the criminal proceedings against him. He argued that he had maintained, throughout the criminal proceedings, that the courts had relied on illegally obtained evidence.


23.  The applicant complained that his allegations in respect of Article 3 also gave rise to a violation of Article <mask> of the Convention. In addition, he complained about restrictions on visits and telephone calls. As regards the latter, the applicant submitted that he had had the right to use a telephone only twice a week and that he had often been under pressure from other inmates to terminate his telephone conversations before the allotted time had expired. He also alleged that his correspondence had been limited to certain identified people.


68.  The Government submitted, referring to the Court’s judgments in the cases of Tonchev v. Bulgaria, no. 18527/02, 19 November 2009; Kulakov v. Ukraine (dec.), no. 12944/02, 16 November 2010; and Ilieva and Georgieva v. Bulgaria (dec.), no. 9548/07, 17 April 2012, that Article <mask> of the Convention had not been applicable to the incident of 4 March 2008. The Government considered that at the time of the events in question the applicant had not been in a particularly vulnerable position, given that he had reached the age of majority, and that he had simply fallen victim to a brawl between two groups that took place in front of his school. The attack had not been directed towards the applicant personally and he had not sustained any serious injuries. This had been confirmed by the relevant medical documentation in the case file and the applicant had failed to substantiate his complaints that he had suffered mental distress.


66.  The applicant makes two distinct complaints under Article <mask> of the Convention, which must be examined separately: first, that paragraphs 398 and 399 of the Immigration Rules, which required the existence of “exceptional circumstances” before removal would be in breach of Article 8 of the Convention, imposed a higher standard than that of “proportionality”; and secondly, that in all the circumstances of his case, the decision to deport him constituted a disproportionate interference with his Article 8 rights.


31.  The applicant complained that the domestic courts had violated his rights under Article <mask> of the Convention when they applied the Amnesty Act without him asking them to do so. The Court considers that this complaint does not disclose any appearance of a violation of Article 8. Finally, the applicant complained under Article 13 that the authorities had infringed his right to an effective remedy. The Court considers that the applicant failed to substantiate that complaint. Moreover, in so far as he relied on the fact that the domestic courts had not properly examined his complaints (see paragraph 20 above), the Court considers that this is covered by its findings under Article 6 of the Convention. In these circumstances the Court finds that this part of the application is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.


114.  The applicants complained that they were unable to claim damages in respect of their relatives' deaths before completion of the investigation and thus had no access to court, contrary to Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. The applicants further complained under Article <mask> of the Convention about unlawful searches of their homes, carried out by Russian servicemen on the night of their relatives' abduction. In so far as relevant, the respective Convention provisions provide:


56.  The applicant complained that he had been discriminated against on the ground of his sexual orientation in that, as a survivor of a de facto same-sex union, he had been denied a survivor’s pension. The applicant complained in particular of the difference of treatment between de facto same-sex unions who had been unable to achieve legal recognition before the legalisation of same-sex marriage in 2005, and unmarried heterosexual couples who had been unable to marry before divorce was legalised in Spain in 1981. The applicant relied on Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article <mask> of the Convention.


31.  The Government reiterated that the refusal of the residence permit and the expulsion order against the applicant were justified measures under Article <mask> of the Convention. They submitted that the circumstances which had led to the applicant’s conviction in 2001 were so serious that the immigration measures had been necessary in a democratic society in order to preserve public order and safety. They also considered that the applicant had shown neither remorse nor the necessary respect towards the victim during the criminal proceedings.


36.  The Government argued that as the Secretary of State followed a practice of following the Tribunal's recommendation this did not deprive the Tribunal's review of an effective decision-making function. While they have referred to previous cases concerning the relevance of administrative practices and policies, the Court observes that these judgments examined complaints under Article <mask> of the Convention where issues arose as to whether certain measures were “in accordance with the law”. In that context, the existence of administrative practices may indeed have a bearing on the conditions of lawfulness of measures. Under Article 5 § 4 however, the plain wording of the provision refers to the decision-making power of the reviewing body. In this case, the power to order release lay with the Secretary of State, even though he may have been under some constraints of administrative law as regarded the situations in which he could or could not depart from a policy that had created legitimate expectations. The ability of an applicant to challenge a refusal by the Secretary of State to follow his previous policy in the courts would not remedy the lack of power of decision in the Tribunal. Article 5 § 4 presupposes the existence of a procedure in conformity with its provisions without the necessity to institute separate legal proceedings in order to bring it about. Similarly, although both parties appear to agree that the Secretary of State, following entry into force of the Human Rights Act 1998, would not be able lawfully to depart from the Tribunal's recommendation, this does not alter the fact that the decision to release would be taken by a member of the executive and not by the Tribunal.  This is not a matter of form but impinges on the fundamental principle of separation of powers and detracts from a necessary guarantee against the possibility of abuse (see, mutatis mutandis, Stafford v. the United Kingdom, [GC] no. 46295/ 99, 28 May 2002, ECHR 2002-..., § 78).


33.  The applicant complained under Article <mask> of the Convention, on her behalf and on behalf of her minor son, that the unauthorised publication of her son’s photograph in a booklet produced for the Municipal Child Protection Centre had infringed their private and family life. She further complained that the domestic courts had failed to protect her and her son’s rights to respect for their private and family life.


74.  The Government accepted that the first applicant had established a family life with his wife and child in Cyprus within the meaning of Article <mask> of the Convention. However, they argued that, in the particular circumstances of the case, there had been no interference or lack of respect for his family life and home in breach of that provision.


37.  The applicant complained about the interception of his telephone and electronic communications, which he said had been contrary to Article <mask> of the Convention. The applicant alleged that his right to respect for his private life and correspondence, protected by that provision, had been breached by the implementation of the Diyarbakır Assize Court’s decision. He noted that while the purpose of the impugned measure appeared to be the identification and arrest of criminals, the seizure of evidence and the prevention of criminal acts by illegal terrorist organisations with international connections, the authorities had failed to provide any evidence which indicated that he or any other person living in Turkey had committed a crime. The Assize Court’s decision had also not shown that there was any reasonable suspicion that he or any other person would have committed a crime.


15.  The applicant submitted that by introducing the possibility to challenge in court a legal presumption of fatherhood, the Bulgarian legislator had recognised the personal right to the protection of private life of individuals who, like himself, were legally presumed to be fathers of children born during the former’s marriage to the mothers. The applicant believed that this right had to be protected not only in theory but also in practice. He argued that by limiting, in law, the possibility of bringing a challenge to fatherhood to one year after the child’s birth or the date of learning thereof, the legislator had deprived of protection any individuals who, like and including the applicant, happened to learn about the biological reality after the expiry of that one year period. Furthermore, by not examining the merits of his legal challenge to paternity, the courts’ decisions represented an unjustified and disproportionate interference with his right to private life in breach of Article <mask> of the Convention.


44.  The Government have argued that the publication at issue did not affect the second applicant’s rights under Article 8 seriously enough for that provision to be applicable. The Court reiterates, however, that in the article the second applicant had been named as a person holding public office and repeatedly breaking the law. It has already been accepted in the Convention organs’ case-law that a person’s right to protection of his or her reputation is encompassed by Article 8 as being part of the right to respect for private life. The Court therefore considered that a person’s reputation, even if that person was criticised in the context of a public debate, formed part of his or her personal identity and psychological integrity and therefore also fell within the scope of his or her “private life” (see Pfeifer v. Austria, no. 12556/03, § 35, 15 November 2007, with further references). The Court explained its approach to such cases in its judgment in A. v. Norway (no. 28070/06, § 64, 9 April 2009), holding that in order for Article 8 to come into play, the attack on personal honour and reputation must attain a certain level of gravity and in a manner causing prejudice to personal enjoyment of the right to respect for private life (see Mikolajová v. Slovakia, no. 4479/03, § 55, 18 January 2011; Roberts and Roberts v. the United Kingdom, (dec.), no. 38681/08, §§ 40-41, 5 July 2011). Having regard to the accusations in respect of the second applicant, the Court sees no reason to hold otherwise. Article <mask> of the Convention thus applies. The Court also finds that the second applicant’s complaint is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention. It further notes that it is not inadmissible on any other grounds. The complaint must therefore be declared admissible.


47.  The applicant complained that the domestic courts’ decision to refuse him access to his son and information about his personal circumstances violated his right under Article <mask> of the Convention to respect for his private and family life. He further submitted that the domestic courts’ failure to investigate sufficiently the relevant facts concerning his relationship with his son, in particular his paternity, and the question whether access was in the child’s best interest violated Article 8, read in conjunction with Article 6 of the Convention.


55.  The applicants contended that this interference was not in accordance with the law within the meaning of Article <mask> of the Convention. They submitted that the provision of Article 45 of the Ministry of Interior Act on the ground of which they were dismissed left unlimited discretionary power to the Ministry to terminate the employment of police officers solely on the basis of the initiation of criminal proceedings. The applicants also claimed that this discretionary power was not consistently applied. They further maintained that the law in question had no provision regulating the renewal of employment upon acquittal in criminal proceedings. They essentially argued that the law was not foreseeable enough and that, for these reasons, it did not satisfy the requirement of lawfulness from Article 8 of the Convention. The applicants further argued that the definitive termination of their employment solely on the basis of the initiation of criminal proceedings was not proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued.


38.  The applicant submitted that the decision to withdraw night-time care from her and require her to use incontinence pads, even though she was not incontinent, constituted an unjustified interference with her right to respect for her private life. In particular, she argued that it was difficult to conceive of a factual situation which established more of a “direct and immediate link” to the rights protected under Article 8 than a disabled person’s need or assistance to reach a toilet or commode where they could urinate and defecate in dignity. The aspects of Article <mask> of the Convention relating to personal and psychological integrity were all in play, and the interference affected the applicant’s ability to maintain an independent life at home and negatively impacted on her family life with her partner. Moreover, it exposed her to considerable indignity and placed significant caring responsibilities on her partner, who had made it clear that he was unable to act as her carer.


17.  The applicant submitted that the refusal to grant him compassionate leave was in breach of Article <mask> of the Convention. He emphasised that, in accordance with the Court’s case‑law, even if a detainee must be subjected to various limitations of his rights and freedoms, each of these limitations must be justifiable as necessary in a democratic society. It was the duty of the State to demonstrate that such necessity really existed in the applicant’s case. The applicant considered that the Government failed to demonstrate such necessity. The refusal of leave was based mainly on the gravity of the committed offence and the penitentiary authorities failed to take into account the progress of the applicant’s rehabilitation. He further considered that the authorities should have acted with greater expediency, having regard to the urgency of the situation.


28.  The Government maintained that child benefits did not fall within the ambit of Article <mask> of the Convention, as the State's general obligation to promote family life did not give rise to concrete rights to specific payments. The statutory provision of Section 1 § 3 of the Child Benefits Act and its application in the present case did not discriminate against the applicants in the exercise of their right to respect for their family life.


63.  The Government argued that the applicant could not be considered a victim or even a potential victim of the alleged violation, in that the relevant rules of civil law did not prevent a transsexual from marrying in his new identity following gender reassignment surgery. The key issue was still that of gender recognition and, as such, it was more appropriately dealt with under Article <mask> of the Convention.


41.  The Government disputed the applicability of Article <mask> of the Convention in the present case. They maintained that the choice of name was not entirely a matter of a person’s individual choice and that the States had a wide margin of appreciation in the area. In their submission, the legislation on assigning names had to remain within the State’s domain and did not come within the scope of the Convention.


46.  The applicants disputed the Government's argument that their case fell outside the scope of protection of Article 8 of the right to respect for private and family life. They pointed out that the first and second applicants had been married during the period when a stay of execution had been granted in respect of the first applicant's expulsion and were thus lawfully residing in Norway. A marriage, even if entered into in breach of the criteria for contracting marriage, should be regarded as having been legally contracted and as implying the same rights as other marriages entered into in Norway. Spouses of Norwegian citizens who had applied for family reunion had a right to make such an application from Norway and to live with their spouse in the country pending final decision on their application. Thus the first applicant had established and enjoyed family life with a permission to reside in Norway, which was sufficient to trigger the protection of Article <mask> of the Convention. Referring to the Court's case-law in this area (notably Mubilanzila Mayeka and Kaniki Mitunga v. Belgium, no. 13178/03, ECHR 2006‑...; and Rodrigues da Silva and Hoogkamer v. the Netherlands, no. 50435/99, ECHR 2006‑...), the applicants argued that the Article 8 guarantees applied also where the person concerned did not hold a formal residence permit but nevertheless lived and had family life in the respondent State.


70.  The applicant complained of a violation of the right to respect for his private life which had allegedly taken place when his telephone conversation with S.Ž. and the conversation in person between him, O.V. and S.Ž. was recorded on 14 December 2001, and when the conversations in his office had been recorded on 18 December 2001. He relied on Article <mask> of the Convention, the relevant part of which provides as follows:


48.  The Government submitted that the aunt did not have the necessary standing to act on behalf of her nephews. Their argument in this respect was threefold: firstly, the father of the boys has never been deprived of his parental rights and was the sole legal guardian of the boys after the death of their mother (see Kruškić and Others v. Croatia, (dec.), no. 10140/13, 25 November 2014). Secondly, the boys have never been placed under the guardianship of their aunt and she hence had no legal basis for representing their interests. Even in the context of the domestic proceedings, the interests of the boys had been ‒ according to the Government ‒ represented by a representative of the SSA and not by her. In any event, Ms N.Ts.’s status as an aunt did not amount to family life with the boys meriting protection under Article <mask> of the Convention.


115.  The applicants asked the Court to hold that there had been a violation of Article <mask> of the Convention. While aware that a long period of time had elapsed since the child was taken into care, and that it was in the child’s interest not to be subjected to a further change in his family situation, the applicants considered that the award of a sum by way of just satisfaction would not be sufficient. They sought to resume contact with the child.


28.  The applicant complained that the search of his business and residential premises and the seizure of documents, which had been ordered by the Bad Urach District Court, had been in breach of his right to respect for his home. He argued in particular that, in the context of investigations into a contravention of a regulation committed by a third person, the search was disproportionate. He relied on Article <mask> of the Convention, the relevant parts of which provide:


43.  The Government submitted that the first applicant had not exhausted domestic remedies in respect of his complaint as he had belatedly presented facts to the Court of Appeal with regard to his relationship to his father and thus to family ties in the meaning of Article <mask> of the Convention. Submissions in that regard would also have been relevant for examining whether his rights under Article 14 of the Convention taken in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 were concerned.


31.  The Government contended that the concept of private life was very broad and did not lend itself to an exhaustive definition. An individual’s physical and moral integrity fell within the notion of “private life” and was protected by Article <mask> of the Convention. In that regard, they noted that the judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court had sought, inter alia, to provide the applicant with adequate compensation for the damage caused by the surgical procedure to her physical and psychological integrity, which had had an impact on both her health and her well-being. In addition, the Government observed that the applicant had complained of discriminatory treatment on the grounds of sex and age, elements which formed part of an individual’s personality and therefore included the concept of private life. The Government concluded therefore that the circumstances of the case fell within the scope of Article 8.


93.  The applicants complained that their removal from Latvia had violated their rights guaranteed by Article <mask> of the Convention in that the measures taken against them in that connection had not respected their private life, their family life and their home in Latvia. They claimed that those measures had not been in accordance with the law, had not pursued any legitimate aim and could not be regarded as necessary in a democratic society within the meaning of Article 8 § 2. The Court must first determine whether the applicants are entitled to claim that they had a “private life”, “family life” or “home” in Latvia within the meaning of Article 8 § 1, and, if so, whether their removal from Latvia amounted to an interference with their right to respect for them.


68.  The applicant also contended that the criminal conviction had adversely affected his moral and psychological integrity and that he had suffered personally, socially, psychologically and economically. The Court observes that the protection of an individual’s moral and psychological integrity is an important aspect of Article <mask> of the Convention. It notes, however, that there is no Convention case-law in which the Court has accepted that a criminal conviction in itself constitutes an interference with the convict’s right to respect for private life. The Court does not ignore that such a criminal conviction may entail personal, social, psychological and economic suffering for the convicted person. In the Court’s view, though, such repercussions may be foreseeable consequences of the commission of a criminal offence and can therefore not be relied on in order to complain that a criminal conviction in itself amounts to an interference with the right to respect for “private life” within the meaning of Article 8 of the Convention.


35.  The applicant replied that in his application in the first Adžić case he had complained under Article 6 § 1 and Article <mask> of the Convention of the excessive length of the proceedings for the return of his son, and under Article 13 that he had not had an effective domestic remedy for those Convention complaints. He had not raised any other complaints under Article 6 § 1, because at that time the proceedings had still been ongoing (see paragraph 11 above), and such a complaint would have been premature.


57.  The Government described the entire incident as a property-related quarrel among neighbours insufficiently serious to amount to a violation of Article <mask> of the Convention (see paragraph 50 above). There were no long-lasting psychological effects on the applicant. The applicant had also “probably ... verbally provoked ...” P.V. Lastly, the Government recalled that the applicant had never filed a separate civil suit for damages whilst the respondent State, for its part, had instituted criminal proceedings ex officio.


53.  The applicant took a number of steps attempting to obtain redress at the domestic level. For instance, his allegations, which served as the basis for his complaint under Article <mask> of the Convention in the proceedings before it, were accepted for examination by the domestic courts on the basis of Article 234 of the then current legislation, the Code of Criminal Procedure 1960. Having regard to the conflicting views expressed by the domestic courts in examining that complaint, and especially, to the positions taken by the Supreme Court in its ruling of 13 July 2004 and the District Court in its decision of 14 October 2004 (see paragraphs 37 and 38 above), the Court cannot conclude that the applicant had attempted to use a remedy which was obviously ineffective (compare and contrast with Ulyanov (dec.), cited above).


61.  The Government argued that complaints of this nature were to be examined under Article <mask> of the Convention. In this respect they referred to a series of cases against Latvia (see Kornakovs v. Latvia, no. 61005/00, §§ 157‑158, 15 June 2006; Ņikitenko v. Latvia, no. 62609/00, § 37, 16 July 2009; and Pacula v. Latvia, no. 65014/01, § 65, 15 September 2009).


41.  The Government also considered that in balancing two interests the Lithuanian courts had given sufficient weight to the second applicant’s rights under Article <mask> of the Convention. Firstly, they had rightly qualified the statements in the article as statements of fact and thus susceptible to proof, therefore placing a more stringent test on the journalist. The courts had emphasised that the journalist had acted in good faith. When preparing the article she had gathered information from all available sources: she had spoken not only with the applicants’ neighbours, but with the second applicant himself. It was also critical that the journalist had relied on official documents – sources of information which, according to the Supreme Court, she had a legitimate right to trust. Taking into account the systemic, multiform nature of administrative-law violations attributed to the property jointly owned by both applicants and that they had acted in an extremely abusive and inappropriate manner, the statements in the publication were accurate enough to allow the conclusion that the right to freedom of expression did not overstep the bounds of responsible journalism. In the light of the above, the Government considered that there was a fair balance in the instant case in favour of freedom of expression.


52.  The applicant complained under Article <mask> of the Convention that the information about his HIV status had been made available to a third party, G., and that this information had been further disseminated by her to others. He also alleged that the domestic inquiry had taken too long and that he had had no effective remedy at national level.


51.  The Government contended that there was no breach of either Article <mask> of the Convention or of Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 to the Convention. They submitted that the refusal of the Supreme Court of Cassation on 26 June 2012 to allow the second applicant’s travel was in strict application of the law, as well as that it was based on the highest court’s constant practice in similar cases, which included a proportionality analysis of the relevant circumstances. They also pointed out that the second applicant was allowed to travel abroad with his mother as a result of the final decision of the Ruse District Court of December 2012.


117.  The Government separated three periods as regards the applicant’s long‑stay visits: between 31 October and 5 November 2008 and between 24 January 2013 and 17 August 2015; between 17 August 2015 and 22 August 2016; and between 9 August 2016 and 1 January 2017. The Government submitted that for the first period the applicant could no longer claim to be a victim of a violation of the Convention because the violation of Article <mask> of the Convention had been expressly acknowledged by the domestic courts and the applicant had received compensation (see paragraph 35 above). For the second period, the Government submitted that the case was still being examined by the domestic courts, and thus the applicant’s complaint regarding that period was premature. Lastly, as regards the third period, the Government argued that the applicant had not asked for long‑stay visits during that period.


71.  The applicant complained that the respondent State, owing to the failure of the domestic courts to secure the accused’s attendance, had failed to protect the right to respect for his private and family life, including his reputation, which had been damaged by the article published in the newspaper. He alleged that as a result of the published article there had been negative public perception about him and his family. His house and business premises had been covered with graffiti describing them as “thieves”. The applicant relied on Article <mask> of the Convention, which reads as follows:


41.  The applicant complained that by routing the M04 motorway via her street, which had been unequipped for such a purpose, and by failing to organise the road’s proper environmental monitoring and management, the Krasnodon municipal authorities had breached her right to enjoyment of her home and her private and family life. She referred in this respect to Article <mask> of the Convention, which reads as follows:


31.  The applicant further pointed to the new legislation allowing the establishment of paternity irrespective of the will of the biological father, with the attendant consequences on inheritance cases, as evidence of altered views on such matters. Taken together with the factual relationship between P., on the one hand, and the applicant and his mother, on the other, this necessarily meant that “family life” in the sense of Article <mask> of the Convention existed between P. and the applicant.


155.  The applicant complained under Article <mask> of the Convention that his confinement in the social care home had violated his rights to home, correspondence and private life on account of the limitation arising from his detention and involuntary medication. Furthermore, under Article 13 of the Convention he complained that he had had no effective remedy for violations of his rights under Article 5 §§ 1, 4 and 5 and Article 8 of the Convention. Lastly, relying on Article 14 in conjunction with Articles 5 and 8 of the Convention, the applicant complained that he had been discriminated against on grounds of his mental disability and that he had been denied reasonable accommodation, as he had been placed in the social care home instead of being provided with services in the community.


77.  The applicant made a similar complaint under Article <mask> of the Convention with regard to the following four letters: (1) the letter sent by the applicant to his lawyer on 19 March 2007; (2) the letter sent to the applicant by the Supreme Court on 14 March 2006; and (3-4) the letters sent to the applicant by the INFOR publishing company on 14 August and 10 October 2007.


29.  The Government maintained, on the contrary, that the dispute did not fall within the scope of the Convention. Article <mask> of the Convention did not safeguard aspirations, yet to be fulfilled, to found a family. Refusing to grant a person prior administrative approval for a possible adoption was not a decision that interfered with a person's private life and so it did not fall within the scope of Article 8. While respect for private life should also comprise “to a certain degree the right to establish and develop relationships with other human beings” (see Niemietz v. Germany, judgment of 16 December 1992, Series A no. 251-B, p. 33-34, § 29), the right to adopt was not included as such among the rights guaranteed by the Convention (see Di Lazzaro v. Italy, no. 31924/96, Commission decision of 10 July 1997, Decisions and Reports (DR) 90-B, p. 134).


40.  The applicants complained about their inability to enjoy family life together as a result of the impossibility, for over two and a half years between 29 April 2010 and the time of submitting their application to the Court on 16 November 2012, for the second applicant to leave the country in order to join his mother in Germany. They relied on Article <mask> of the Convention, the relevant parts of which read as follows:


70.  The applicant also complained of a discriminatory interference with his right to respect for his private life on the grounds that the potential assistance by a third person would have had the effect of making him dependent on that person and depriving him of his privacy, in breach of Article <mask> of the Convention read in conjunction with Article 14.


66.  The Government conceded that the applicant’s relationship with her adopted children might fall within the scope of Article <mask> of the Convention under the notion of “private life”. They acknowledged that the fact of the children’s existence would always be an important aspect of the applicant’s life history, given that she was their natural mother. However, they doubted that the decisions of the domestic courts regarding contact and information rights infringed the applicant’s right to respect for her private life. The Government pointed out that the applicant had been informed about the legal effects of the placement order. They further stressed that the alleged arrangements concerning a “half-open” adoption were made only after the applicant had placed the children for adoption. At the time of consenting to the adoption, the applicant had had no grounds whatsoever to assume that she would be able to continue any form of relationship with the children.


81.  The applicant complained under Article <mask> of the Convention that the wrong reason was given for his discharge from the armed forces and that the reason given carried a stigma which had a negative effect on his future employment prospects. He further complained under Article 13 about the fact that the award of compensation did not take into account his expenses in bringing the claim. Finally, he complained under Article 14 of the Convention that he had been the victim of discrimination as he was unable to afford proper representation and, as a result, his status and standing were called into question.


27.  The applicant complained that his allegations in respect of Article 3 also gave rise to a violation of Article <mask> of the Convention. In addition, he complained about restrictions on visits and telephone calls. As regards the latter, the applicant submitted that he had often been under pressure from other inmates to terminate his telephone conversations before the allotted time had expired. He also alleged that his correspondence had been limited to certain identified people.


45.  The Government argued that the interference with the applicant’s right to respect for family life was justified under paragraph 2 of Article <mask> of the Convention. They essentially stated that the domestic courts had carried out an in-depth examination of the entire family situation and made a balanced and reasonable assessment of the respective interests of the child and both parents. In the circumstances of the case, the resulting decision not to order the child’s return to Canada had undoubtedly been in his best interest.


267.  The Government argued that extracting the metal fragment would have been not just pointless but impossible. It would not have yielded any useful additional information regarding the circumstances in which M.P. had had recourse to lethal force. Micro-fragments of lead had already been found on the victim's balaclava, the analysis of which had confirmed the intermediate object theory. Furthermore, at the time Carlo Giuliani's body was returned to his family for cremation there had been no reason to suppose that the autopsy report, which had not yet been written, would be “superficial”. It was usual practice, moreover, to hand over the body to the relatives once the experts had indicated that they had no further need of it. This spared the victim's relatives a further ordeal and respected their rights under Article <mask> of the Convention.


126.  The applicants complained, firstly, that the order for their removal to Kazakhstan had constituted a disproportionate interference with their right to a private and family life. They argued, secondly, that their placement in detention had not been a necessary measure in relation to the aim pursued and that the conditions and duration of their detention had constituted a disproportionate interference with their right to a private and family life. They relied on Article <mask> of the Convention, which reads as follows:


50.  The applicants complained that, as a whole, the authorities’ behaviour had amounted to a disproportionate interference with their private and family life because for more than six years they had not been allowed to use their embryos for a new assisted reproduction procedure and had thus lost the possibility to have another child. They relied on Article <mask> of the Convention, which reads as follows:


33.  The Government noted that the applicant had alleged a violation of the State’s positive obligations under Article <mask> of the Convention. However, what was at stake in the present case was a weighing of the applicant’s interests protected by Article 8 on the one hand and the freedom of the press to disseminate information protected by Article 10 of the Convention on the other. It followed that the principles developed by the Court’s case-law under Article 10 also had to be taken into account.


22.  The applicant contended that the length of the civil proceedings exceeded the “reasonable time” requirement of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. Moreover, he complained under Article <mask> of the Convention that by delaying the payment of the additional compensation and by unlawfully depriving him of his property, the authorities violated his right to respect for his private and family life.


22.  The Government conceded that, on the facts of this application, the existence of, and prosecution of the applicant under, legislation providing for different ages of consent for homosexual and heterosexual activities constituted a violation of Article 14 taken together with Article <mask> of the Convention. The Government recognised that it was regrettable that there was a policy of maintaining different ages of consent according to sexual orientation. The Government reminded the Court that the age of consent for homosexual and heterosexual activities had been equalised since 2001 and that they were now engaged in a comprehensive review of the law relating to sexual offences to ensure, inter alia, that legislation did not differentiate unnecessarily on the grounds of gender or sexual orientation. The Government further recalled that, although criminal proceedings were commenced against the present applicant, the CPS decided not to pursue the charges and he was formally acquitted.


36.  The Government pointed out that while the principle of professional secrecy as expressed in the Lawyers Act served to protect the special relationship of confidence between a lawyer and a client, professional secrecy did not protect the lawyer himself against criminal prosecution or measures in connection with such prosecution. Turning to the present application, the Government stressed that the search had been carried out in the presence of a representative of the Bar Association, and in compliance with the relevant provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure with a view to securing the guarantees of Article <mask> of the Convention.


114.  The Government admitted that the judgment of 12 March 2009 granting the applicant custody of her son remained unenforced. They asserted, however, that the domestic authorities had applied, without undue delay, all the measures provided for by domestic law to have the above judgment enforced. The measures in question had been adequate and sufficient, and the competent domestic authorities had acted diligently to assist the applicant in execution of the judgment. The enforcement proceedings were still under way, as was the search for the applicant’s son, and enforcement of the judgment in question was still possible. There has therefore been no failure by the State to comply with its positive obligation to secure the applicant’s right to respect for her family life guaranteed by Article <mask> of the Convention.


46.  The applicant, being duly represented by a lawyer and having had legal training himself, admittedly failed to complain expressly, before the domestic courts, of a violation of his right to respect for his family life, under Article <mask> of the Convention. However, in the appeal he lodged on 7 March 2006 with the Court of Appeal, against the District Court's decision, he expressly stated that the court below had reversed the burden of proof, in patent disregard of Article 13 of the Hague Convention (see paragraph 38 above).


52.  The applicant companies pointed out that the Government had taken nearly three years, following the Constitutional Council's decision of 29 December 1983, to repeal the 1945 ordinance and that the administrative authorities had in the meantime continued to implement regulations which they must have known to be contrary to the Constitution and to the principles enshrined in Article <mask> of the Convention. It had been during that very period that the inspections in issue had been carried out. The applicant companies further stated that no advice had been issued to the inspectors to exercise a minimum of caution. Having regard to the proceedings after the case had been remitted to the Paris Court of Appeal, the applicant companies argued that that court had not drawn the necessary inferences from the observations submitted by the minister in reply to their pleadings alleging a violation of Article 8 of the Convention. In their submission, the minister's reasoning should logically have led the court to find, in the light of Funke, Crémieux and Miailhe (no. 1), that there had been a violation of Article 8 and therefore to set aside the investigation proceedings. The Paris Court of Appeal's finding that only the right of inspection had been exercised in the instant case had therefore been made proprio motu and was a statement of principle which did not follow from any of the material before it. The applicant companies considered that the judicial authorities had “salvaged” the proceedings in disregard of the Court's case-law. In practical terms, the actions complained of had resulted in the following fines for the applicant companies: 5,000,000 French francs (FRF) for Colas Est, FRF 3,000,000 for Colas Sud-Ouest and FRF 6,000,000 for Sacer.


88.  The applicant Ms Ostrovskaya moved to Russia to follow her extended family. Her parents and husband had died but her sister and her adult son lived permanently in Russia with their families. The Court reiterates that an applicant cannot rely upon the existence of “family life” in relation to adults who do not belong to his or her core family and who have not been shown to be or to have been dependent on him or her (see Slivenko, cited above, § 97). Nonetheless, the link between adult children and their parents falls under the head of “private life” within the meaning of Article <mask> of the Convention (ibid.). She shares household expenses with her son’s family and does not have friends or relatives outside Russia. These are further indicators of the personal, social and economic ties which make up her “private life” in Russia, which the exclusion order against her has threatened to disrupt.


113.  The Government further asserted that the documents confirming the allotment of the plot of land to the applicant were missing from the records of the local council of the village of Bratskoye, that the title to the houses which the applicant and his brother had built on that plot had not been properly registered, and that those houses were not listed as residential premises, according to the records of the local council of Bratskoye. They referred in this respect to the certificates of 2007 (see paragraphs 75, 77 and 78 above). The Government also submitted that between 1997 and 1999 the applicant and his family had been absent from their premises, which at that time had been occupied by Chechen fighters who had built quarters on the applicant's land, and that at the moment when the units of the Ministry of the Interior had occupied the applicant's estate it had been abandoned, and therefore had not been his home within the meaning of Article <mask> of the Convention.


38.  The Government submitted that the restriction of the applicant’s right to correspondence had been based on section 13 of the Pre-Trial Detention Act, and had been compatible with Article <mask> of the Convention. In the context of the proportionality test, they emphasised that, even though the applicant had not been granted permission to correspond with his relatives, he had benefitted from three family visits during the relevant time.


67.  The applicant argued that the quashing by the City Court of the judgment of 2 December 2015 ordering V.’s immediate return to Finland had amounted to unlawful and disproportionate interference with his rights under Article <mask> of the Convention, as it had not been necessary in a democratic society. He challenged the City Court’s interpretation of the provisions of the Hague Convention regarding its basic concepts, such as “habitual residence”, “wrongfulness of the removal”, and “exceptions to immediate return”. In interpreting those concepts, the court had applied approaches characteristic of the national law, without regard to their autonomous meaning in the light of the Hague Convention. He criticised the court’s finding that Finland had not been the place of his daughter’s habitual residence despite the fact that she had been born in Finland and had lived there for over two years prior to her removal to Russia, where she had never been before. The applicant noted in this connection that I.K. had not disputed the fact that Finland had been the country of V.’s habitual residence (see paragraphs 14 and 33 above).


42.  The applicant also complained that the use of the land next to her house for burials had breached her rights guaranteed by Article <mask> of the Convention, in particular, on account of an elevated risk that her well water would be poisoned and in view that living in the immediate proximity of a functioning cemetery caused her serious psychological discomfort.


63.  The Government accepted that the police officers' entry into the front garden of the applicant's house constituted an interference with her right to respect for her home guaranteed by Article <mask> of the Convention. However, the interference had been in “accordance with the law”. According to the Government, the interference had been based on section 13(19) of the Police Act of 18 December 1990, and in particular on provisions authorising the police to enter private houses without the consent of the owner and to inspect them in order to put an end to offences and to pursue persons suspected of having committed an offence. The Government also argued that the interference had pursued a legitimate aim and had been necessary in a democratic society.