78.  The applicant stated that her inability to effectively opt for any alternative model of childbirth and the requirement for her to surrender to the obstetric model of birth care in hospital – causing her to experience obstetric violence – represented a serious breach of her right to decide on the circumstances in which to give birth, and interference with her right to physical and psychological integrity under Article <mask> of the Convention. Although she believed that the circumstances of her case called for an assessment primarily in terms of the Government’s positive obligations, the applicant intended to apply a holistic approach to the assessment of whether the damage sustained by her was justifiable in the light of the relevant principles of the Convention, bearing in mind that the underlying principles of legality, legitimacy and proportionality were inherent in both the positive and negative obligations of the State.


52.  The Government submitted that the applicant had failed to substantiate her complaint under Article <mask> of the Convention by specifying any particular consequences that the police decision had had on her private life. Moreover, the police decision predominantly consisted of allegations made by the applicant's husband. The applicant had not shown that she had attempted to contest these allegations domestically, for example, by filing an action under Articles 11 et. seq. of the Civil Code, or by a criminal complaint against her husband on the grounds of false accusation. Nor had the applicant claimed before the Court that her husband's allegations were false.


42.  The applicants submitted that the second applicant was integrated in Austria and had a right to an employment permit under Article <mask> of the Convention. They submitted in this regard that the second applicant had been legally residing in Austria since 1991 and had a wife and a daughter in Austria who, in the interim, had become Austrian nationals. He had already worked for the applicant company for seven years. The applicants submitted that a claim to work by a foreign worker permanently established with his family in the host country was, at the very least, an arguable right. The right of a foreign employee to an employment permit was furthermore indirectly recognised by the case-law of the Constitutional Court according to which an alien was not to be discriminated against by another alien. Further, the competent authorities did not have an unfettered discretion to decide whether or not an employment permit should be granted but were bound by the conditions laid down in the Employment of Aliens Act. The applicants argued that the second applicant’s right to employment in Austria could be deduced from the Geneva Refugee Convention, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Association Agreement between Austria and Turkey and the European Social Charter.


84.  The Government objected that the scope of the applicant’s original complaint under Article <mask> of the Convention, as expressed in his initial submission and defined by the Court’s admissibility decision, did not cover his subsequent objections in respect of the continued existence of his StB file in the State’s hands, its legal framework, legitimacy and proportionality. They maintained that, in any event, the last-mentioned criteria were met.


34.  The Government claimed that the interference with the applicant’s right to respect for her home had been proportionate and “necessary in a democratic society” because the applicant had moved into the flat unlawfully and she had had an alternative place in which to live. In addition, the interference had aimed to protect A.’s right to respect for his home. In that respect, while the lawfulness of establishing one’s home in a particular place and the availability of alternative accommodation might be relevant for the assessment of the proportionality of an eviction, the Court observes that those matters were not examined by the domestic courts in the present case. As regards A.’s interests, the Court agrees that in the present case the domestic courts had to balance two competing private interests, namely A.’s right and the applicant’s right to occupy the State-owned flat under a social tenancy agreement following the death of the tenant. However, the Court is not convinced that in taking the decision to evict the applicant, the domestic courts balanced those interests in a way compatible with the requirements of Article <mask> of the Convention.


33.  The applicant complained of ill-treatment by the police which had seriously endangered his life and had led to serious consequences for his health. He also complained of the lack of an effective investigation into his allegations. The applicant further submitted that there had been a violation of Article <mask> of the Convention as a result of the physical harm suffered by him and that, in breach of Article 13 of the Convention, he had had no effective remedies against the breaches enumerated above. Articles 2, 3, 8 and 13 of the Convention, on which the applicant relied, read as follows:


45.  The applicant also complained under Articles 3, 6 and 13 of the Convention that his appeal against the judgment of 8 June 2004 had not been examined. In his letter of 30 October 2006 the applicant complained under Article <mask> of the Convention about monitoring of his correspondence with a non-governmental organisation. Lastly, he complained under Article 34 of the Convention about his transfer from one prison to another.


56.  The applicants’ complaints concerning the procedure followed by the Italian courts were communicated to the Government under Article <mask> of the Convention, which, whilst it contains no explicit procedural requirements, requires that the decision-making process leading to measures of interference must be fair and such as to afford due respect to the interests safeguarded by that Article (see, inter alia, Iosub Caras v. Romania, no. 7198/04, § 41, 27 July 2006, and Moretti and Benedetti v. Italy, no. 16318/07, § 27, ECHR 2010‑... (extracts)).


26.  The Government submitted that the applicant had not been subject to any physical or verbal violence subsequent to the publication of the article. They further maintained that the applicant had requested the public prosecutor’s office to punish the author of the article published in the Bolu Express and had not requested security protection. The Government therefore considered that there had been no violation of Articles 2 and 13 of the Convention in the present case. They stated, however, that the applicant’s complaints under this head should be examined under Article <mask> of the Convention. At the same time, the Government did not submit any observations under Article 8 and left it to the Court’s discretion to rule on the applicant’s complaints under this head.


92.  The Government of Cyprus submitted that the killing of Solomos Solomou, a member of the applicants’ family, was a deliberate action destroying the family unit as such, which violated Article <mask> of the Convention. They furthermore submitted that, in breach of Article 14 of the Convention, the Turkish authorities had adopted a discriminatory policy with regard to Greek Cypriots. It was hard to believe that Turkey would have acted in the same murderous way if Solomos Solomou had been a Turk.


37.  The applicant submitted that the searches at his office and apartment constituted an interference with his rights guaranteed under Article <mask> of the Convention. He considered that, while pursuing a legitimate aim under paragraph 2 of that Article, the interference was neither “in accordance with the law”, nor “necessary in a democratic society”. In particular, he referred to the lack of detail in the court’s decision authorising the searches, which failed to identify the object(s) to be searched, the time-frame for the searches or the person responsible for carrying it out, despite express legal requirements to give such detail. Moreover, the searches conducted on the basis of vaguely worded search warrants and without any special measures being taken to safeguard the confidentiality of files in a lawyer’s office, necessarily resulted in a disproportionate interference with the applicant’s rights. In particular, he referred to the opening, by the investigating authority, of his safe and of all his files at his office, which undermined his lawyer-client privilege.


120.  The applicants did not allege a lack of effective domestic remedies in respect of their complaint under Article <mask> of the Convention. The Court decided of its own motion to examine this question under Article 13 in the present case (see, for a similar approach, Burdov v. Russia (no. 2), no. 33509/04, § 89, ECHR 2009), and requested the parties in applications nos. 35090/09, 35845/11, and 45694/13 to address the issue of availability of effective domestic remedies. Article 13 of the Convention provides as follows:


52. The applicants complained that the freeing order was a disproportionate interference with their rights guaranteed by Article <mask> of the Convention because the domestic authorities failed to keep their assessment of their family situation under review and because the reasons given by the trial judge were neither relevant nor sufficient. The applicants also argued that, procedurally, it was improper for a freeing order to have been made in advance of an adoption order. If the freeing order had been refused, the applicants would have been able to participate at the adoption order hearing.


24.  The Government did not dispute the applicability of Article <mask> of the Convention to the circumstances of the present case. They submitted, however, that the applicants could hardly be considered as having been adversely affected by the absence of the possibility to have long-term family visits, given that they had not even been using their right to short-term visits. The Government observed in that connection that the second applicant had visited the first applicant only on two occasions in 2003 and 2004 and never thereafter.


89.  The applicant complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention of the outcome of the criminal proceedings brought by him against his former wife in so far as he stated that the authorities had shown themselves to be partial and to favour his wife, and that the same facts as those which constituted the alleged violation of Article <mask> of the Convention also gave rise to a breach of Articles 13 and 5 of Protocol No. 7 to the Convention.


45.  The applicant complained under Article <mask> of the Convention that not being allowed long-stay visits from his partner and his sister had caused him intolerable mental and physical suffering. He also complained, under Article 8 taken in conjunction with Article 14, that his entitlement in that connection had been restricted more than that of a convicted person serving a prison sentence. The relevant parts of Article 8 and Article 14 provide as follows:


47.  The applicant also contested the argument that there was a public interest in the article at issue. Even if there were a public debate about the occurrences at the seminary or about the moral standards proclaimed by the Roman Catholic Church in respect of homosexuality, this did not justify attacking him in a defamatory manner, giving his full name and publishing a picture taken at a private party. He alleged that to permit reporting on his private life and publication of his picture just because he was a priest deprived him of the protection which was afforded to any other person under Article <mask> of the Convention.


73.  The Government further submitted that the present case was different from the case of Görgülü v. Germany, (no. 74969/01, 26 February 2004), where the Court had found a violation of Article <mask> of the Convention, because by contrast to the Görgülü case, the child in the present case was older than ten years of age and the first applicant had not been prevented from maintaining contact with her. Indeed, X had stated in the domestic proceedings that her grandparents had not prevented her from communicating with her father, but that her father had never attempted to contact her. In any event, the first applicant had never applied for contact rights. There was also evidence in the case file that X had been traumatised by the only contact she had had with her father, in January 2010 (see paragraph 26 above).


143.  The applicants’ complaint concerning their inability to enjoy family life with Arbi Karimov concerns the same facts as those examined above under Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention. Having regard to its above findings under these provisions, the Court considers that this complaint should be declared admissible. However, it finds that no separate issue arises under Article <mask> of the Convention in this respect (see, mutatis mutandis, Ruianu v. Romania, no. 34647/97, § 66, 17 June 2003; Laino v. Italy [GC], no. 33158/96, § 25, ECHR 1999‑I; and Canea Catholic Church v. Greece, 16 December 1997, § 50 Reports 1997‑VIII).


104.  The applicants complained that the State authorities had not complied with their procedural positive obligation under Article 3 and/or Article <mask> of the Convention in that they had refused to prosecute the first applicant’s father for the criminal offence of child abuse he had committed against her. They also complained that the domestic authorities had not discharged their positive obligation under either of those Articles in that they had failed to remove the first applicant from her father’s care and thus prevent him from committing further violent acts against her. Those Articles read as follows:


19.  The applicant alleged that there had been a breach of his right to respect for his private life on account of the order to provide a biological sample for inclusion in the FNAEG and the fact that his refusal to comply with that order has resulted in a criminal conviction. He relied on Article <mask> of the Convention, which provides:


116.  The applicants invoked Article <mask> of the Convention, arguing that the abuse suffered by them in their private and family life and the local authority’s lack of action to prevent that abuse was a violation of their right to respect for their physical and moral integrity. They had needed protection from the assaults and abuse, which could and should have been provided by the local authority in whom the care of the applicants had been vested.


49.  The applicants complained that their separation during the ten days that the second applicant was in hospital violated their right to respect for their private and family life under Article <mask> of the Convention. The second applicant further complained that the decision to take a blood sample and photographs without consent constituted an unjustified and disproportionate interference with her physical and moral integrity.


57.  The applicant complained that the domestic authorities had failed to secure her right to respect for her family life in that: (a) they had not taken any measures to facilitate the voluntary return of her children; (b) the domestic courts had not acted expeditiously in the proceedings for the return of children; and (c) in the same proceedings the courts had refused to order the return of her children. She also complained that by deciding in the civil proceedings for divorce and child custody that all three of her children were to live with their father, the domestic courts had breached her right to respect for her family life. She relied on Article <mask> of the Convention, the relevant part of which reads as follows:


28.  The Government argued that the German courts had not failed to protect the applicant’s right under Article <mask> of the Convention when they had refused his request for an injunction. The courts had extensively examined his action in line with the Court’s case-law regarding balancing Articles 8 and 10 of the Convention. The German courts had correctly concluded that the journalist had complied with his journalistic duty of care. In particular, the article had been free from exaggerations and based on reliable official reports. Both aspects had been considered by the Court of Appeal in detail. Moreover, the Government submitted that the public had a valid interest in the publication of articles in an online archive of a newspaper, if they had been lawfully published originally and were recognisable as archived old-news stories. In the present case, both requirements had been met. Lastly, the Government pointed out that the applicant’s submissions regarding the right to be forgotten and the correlating judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union were negligible, since the judgment concerned completely different circumstances and no relevant principles could be derived from it for the present case.


14.  The applicant also complained of a violation of his right to respect for his family life resulting from the length of the proceedings complained of. He relied on Article <mask> of the Convention. In particular, he submitted that due to the unreasonable length of the proceedings, his company went bankrupt, and that he was under criminal indictment for an excessive period.


40.  The applicant alleged that he had not been provided with an opportunity to appeal against the decision of 31 May 2002, in contravention of Articles 3, 5 and 6 of the Convention. He further complained under Article <mask> of the Convention that Dr. N's visit to his flat on 5 June 2002 had been an interference with his right to respect for his private life and that, on the basis of her decision of 5 June 2002 to admit him to hospital, he had been arrested and taken to a police station. He complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 that his involuntary placement in a psychiatric hospital might warrant the restriction of his legal capacity, in which case he would be unable to sell or buy property. Lastly, without providing further detail, the applicant alleged a violation of his rights provided for in Articles 2, 4, 7 to 10, 13, 17, and 18 of the Convention.


73.  The applicants submitted that the second applicant’s detention also violated Article <mask> of the Convention as it constituted disproportionate interference with their right to respect for their private and family life. The Belgian State was or should have been aware of the first applicant’s refugee status in Canada because of the letters it had received from Mr Ma. and the UNHCR’s intervention. The applicants argued that family reunification was a fundamental right of refugees and cited, among other authorities, Recommendation 1327 (1997)of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on the protection and reinforcement of the human rights of refugees and asylum-seekers in Europe. In their submission, the obligations incumbent on States that were parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child signed in New York on 20 November 1989 (and in particular, Articles 3 and 10 thereof) could be used as a guide when assessing whether the interference with the child’s family life had been necessary. The reasons given by the Government in no way justified the interference, which had consisted of the second applicant’s detention notwithstanding a proposal by her lawyer for her to be placed with foster parents. Her illegal entry was not a reason for denying her fundamental rights; nor did her inability to travel to the Netherlands prevent her placement with foster parents. Furthermore, although family reunification in Canada would have taken some time, there had been no need to keep the child in a closed centre. Nor could the fact that members of her family had been located in Kinshasa serve to justify her detention since she was the daughter of a person with recognised refugee status and her return to her country of origin placed her safety and even her life at risk. The fact that the first applicant had been granted refugee status in Canada should, furthermore, have alerted the Belgian authorities to the need to act with great caution. Lastly, while the applicants accepted that the first applicant had been wrong to ask her brother to bring her daughter to Europe, they said that she had done so in the belief that it was in her daughter’s best interests.


105.  The applicant submitted that the prolonged distress and anguish caused by his son's disappearance over the past eleven years amounted to a violation of his right to respect for family life within the meaning of Article <mask> of the Convention. According to the applicant, this breach was the direct result of the respondent State's failure to protect his son's right to life, liberty and security pursuant to Articles 2 and 5 of the Convention.


82.  The applicants claimed 60,000 euros (EUR) (EUR 20,000 each) in respect of the non‑pecuniary damage arising out of the violation of Article <mask> of the Convention. They submitted that their physical separation had engendered feelings of loneliness and hopelessness. The second applicant had had to take sedatives for a year after the expulsion of her husband. The relationship between the first applicant and his daughter had suffered serious damage as a result of their being apart. This had been exacerbated by the fact that the third applicant had epilepsy, which had grown worse as a result of the stress caused by her father’s absence. The option for the whole family to settle in Turkey was not viable because there, unlike in Bulgaria, the costly medication needed for the third applicant’s epilepsy would not be provided free of charge. Moreover, neither the second nor the third applicant spoke Turkish.


43.  The applicants complained that the exclusion order against the first applicant gave rise to a violation of Article <mask> of the Convention. The applicants further complained that their separation as a result of the exclusion order caused both of them irreparable mental harm and therefore constituted inhuman and degrading treatment pursuant to Article 3 of the Convention. The Court considers that the complaint concerning the effects of the expulsion on the applicants’ mental health also falls under Article 8 (see Bensaid v. the United Kingdom, no. 44599/98, §§ 46-47, ECHR 2001‑I, with further references), and will consequently examine it under that head. Article 8 reads as follows:


59.  The applicant stressed in particular that the interference with his private and family life had not been in accordance with the law, had not pursued a legitimate aim and had been disproportionate. He pointed out that although he had been dismissed as a result of the withdrawal of his canonical mandate, this measure had been a direct consequence of his second marriage. Thus, his chances of pursuing his specific professional activity had been seriously affected on account of events mainly related to the personal choices he had made in the context of his private and family life. Moreover, precisely because of his specialised educational background and skills, it had been difficult for him to secure alternative employment or be entitled to social assistance. He therefore considered that this clearly showed that there had been an interference with his rights under Article <mask> of the Convention.


51.  The Government claimed that the applicant’s complaint under Article <mask> of the Convention was inadmissible for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies. In particular, in connection with the first aspect of the complaint concerning the period of his pre-trial detention, they submitted that the applicant had never requested a family visit in accordance with the procedure provided for in section 89 of the Law on Imprisonment, in force at the material time (see paragraph 29 above). As for the subsequent post‑conviction period, he had been entitled to supplementary visits with the consent of the governor of the relevant prison, but he had never availed himself of this opportunity.


53.   The applicant resided in Switzerland between 1989 and 2008, that is to say for more than eighteen years – with a short interruption in 1993-94 – and he worked and raised his family there. The Court has therefore no reason to doubt that the applicant had established social, professional and family ties in the respondent State. The immigration measures taken by the domestic authorities therefore clearly interfered with his rights under Article <mask> of the Convention. This has also been acknowledged by the Swiss Government.


45.  The Government disagreed that there had been an interference with the applicant’s rights under Article <mask> of the Convention on account of the restriction of the confidentiality of his meetings with his lawyer. The Government submitted that, were the Court to find that there had been an interference, it had been justified under the second paragraph of Article 8. They submitted that the restriction had been in accordance with the law, namely section 5 of Law no. 5275, and had pursued the legitimate aim of ensuring order and security in the prison and protecting the rights of convicted prisoners and detainees.


175.  The applicants maintained that the Social Welfare Board and the courts failed to carry out a proper examination of the applicants’ request for reunification of their family, and thus exceeded their margin of appreciation. The applicants stressed that taking into care should be regarded as a temporary measure to be discontinued as soon as possible and that, in the present case, care was expected to be of long duration, as the authorities’ presumption from the very beginning was that these children would never be returned to their biological parents. The meetings with the children under strict supervision were, in the applicants’ opinion, so unnatural that the parents and the children were not able to form normal family ties and they never had an opportunity to have a normal family life together. As the Government’s intention not to reunite the family was also repeated several times by the Government before the Court, the violation of Article <mask> of the Convention in this respect had been established. The authorities had acted in a clearly arbitrary way without any intention at all to terminate the care, whatever the circumstances.


48.  The applicants complained that the Supreme Court, in its decision of 15 October 1996 in the enforcement proceedings, had ordered a review of questions which had already been dealt with in the final return order under the Hague Convention and that this review had eventually led to the non-enforcement of the return order. They alleged a violation of Article <mask> of the Convention which, as far as material, reads as follows:


73.  The applicant also alleged that the ex-officio reopening of the social security proceedings, which had resulted in the quashing of the final decision granting her a right to a pension, was in breach of the principle of legal certainty under Article 6  § 1 of the Convention. She also complained under Article <mask> of the Convention of an interference with her right to respect for her private and family life in that by divesting her of the EWK pension the authorities had deprived her of her sole source of income and the financial resources indispensable for her livelihood.


57.  The applicant complained under Article <mask> of the Convention that the written obligation not to abscond and the seizure of his international travel passports constituted an unlawful and disproportionate interference with his private and family life, which was largely concentrated in another country. He emphasised that subsequent to the written undertaking not to abscond until the date of his application to the Court, he was at no point summoned by the investigator for the purpose of taking part in any investigatory procedure.


210.  The applicants further maintained that the third applicant’s right to respect for her home under Article <mask> of the Convention and their right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 had been violated, as the means employed by the authorities had been disproportionate to the aims sought to be achieved. They also referred to the domestic courts’ decisions by which the first applicant’s claim for compensation had been rejected and argued that the right to compensation for the destroyed property established, according to the Government, in a number of legal instruments, was illusory and not enforceable in practice.


45.  The applicants asserted that, regardless of the danger to one’s health, the deterioration of the environment fell to be examined under Article <mask> of the Convention where it adversely affected one’s life. They agreed that Article 8 was not violated every time environmental deterioration occurred. They understood the importance of urban development and the economic interests associated with it. They also understood that States had discretion in making decisions about urban planning. On the other hand, the applicants had no doubt that any State interference with the environment should strike a fair balance between the competing interests of the individuals and the community as a whole. In the present case the issue of the fair balance was rather simple. In its decisions nos. 3955/1995 and 3956/1995 the Supreme Administrative Court had itself tipped the balance in favour of the swamp and against urban development. Consequently, the Greek authorities were obliged to abide by their own choice. However, in failing to comply with the above-mentioned decisions, they had allowed the destruction of the swamp.


44.  The Government acknowledged that the impugned court decisions had amounted to an interference with the applicant’s right to freedom of expression. However, the interference had been prescribed by law and had pursued the legitimate aim of protecting the reputation of A.L., as guaranteed by Article <mask> of the Convention. Referring to Kasabova v. Bulgaria (no. 22385/03, § 54, 19 April 2011) and Axel Springer AG (cited above, §§ 85-86, 89), the Government also claimed that the interference had been proportionate. They maintained that the States must be given a certain margin of appreciation in striking the appropriate balance between the right to freedom of expression and the right to respect for private life (Kasabova, cited above, § 60).


47.  The Government submitted that there had been no violation of Article <mask> of the Convention. The eviction order had been in accordance with the law, it had pursued a legitimate aim and had been necessary in order to protect the rights of forced migrants. The housing occupied by the applicants was federal property managed by the FMS, which distributed it to forced migrants in need of housing and their families. The first applicant had lost her status of a forced migrant in 2001 and since that time she had been unlawfully occupying the housing in question. Such unlawful occupation breached the rights of forced migrants in need of accommodation.


203.  The Government claimed that the interference with the applicant’s home had been justified under paragraph 2 of Article <mask> of the Convention. Thus, the applicant had been suspected of having organised in 1999 the embezzlement of property and shares of several companies active in the oil industry. The applicant was a lawyer and a member of the Moscow Bar; as a result, special rules set out in Chapter 52 of the CCrP applied to him. Those rules required that any investigative measure affecting the applicant should be preceded by a court authorisation.


154.  The applicants complained that the search of their house carried out by Russian servicemen on 20 July 2004 breached their right to respect for their home. The fifth, seventh, eighth and tenth applicants complained that the killing of their father breached their right to respect for family life. They relied on Article <mask> of the Convention, which reads, in so far as relevant, as follows:


102.  The applicants, referring to the Court's case-law, submitted that they were entitled to the protection of Article <mask> of the Convention as they were a family, had at all relevant times permanently lived together and had been financially dependent on one another. The existence of true family life between the applicants could not be denied on the sole ground that Mr Al‑Nashif had a second religious marriage. Such a situation was not uncommon in the cultural traditions of many peoples.


46.  The applicants further complained of violations of Articles 6, 8, 13 and 14 of the Convention. In this connection, they alleged that they had been denied a fair trial as a result of the national courts’ decisions based on the opinion of the Ministry of Justice. The interference in question had also constituted a breach of their right to family life protected by Article <mask> of the Convention. Furthermore, the applicants claimed to have been denied an effective remedy for their grievances in breach of Article 13. Finally, they alleged that the violations in question had occurred as a result of their Greek ethnic origin and their Christian Orthodox faith.


103.  The applicant also complained that the search constituted unjustified interference with her right to respect for her home and private life, as protected by Article <mask> of the Convention. She noted that her laptop, which had been seized, contained private information which she did not consider was necessary for the purposes of the investigation. She objected, in that regard, to the wide scope of the search warrant.


81.  The Government disagreed. They accepted that the first applicant’s psychiatric examination constituted interference with his private life within the meaning of Article <mask> of the Convention. They argued, however, that this interference was justified under paragraph 2 of the provision at issue. In particular, the assessment had been carried out based on Mrs L.’s complaints about the first applicant’s deviant behaviour, which had posed a threat to her own safety and the safety of others. These complaints had not been unsubstantiated; in particular, in June 2000 the first applicant had injured Mrs L. Other villagers had also complained to various authorities about the first applicant’s provocative conduct. The Government submitted in this regard copies of complaints concerning the first applicant’s conduct signed by various individuals and dated 2000 – 2003. In the light of this, the first applicant’s psychiatric examination had pursued a legitimate aim – namely, protection of the rights of others. It had been necessary in a democratic society and was conducted in accordance with the law. In particular, the relevant provision was section 11 of the Law of Ukraine “On Psychiatric Assistance”, authorising forcible psychiatric assessments of persons manifesting real intention to commit acts putting others in danger. Lastly, the Government submitted that the lawfulness of the application of that provision in the first applicant’s case had been confirmed by judicial authorities of two levels in the course of the contested proceedings.


27.  The applicants complained that their right to respect for family life had been violated by their separation from their child, that their right to moral and physical integrity under the private life aspect had been violated, that their right to reputation had been violated, affecting their right to establish and develop relationships with other human beings and that they had been deprived of the right to have inherent procedural safeguards in place and observed to ensure the protection of the above rights. Article <mask> of the Convention provides as relevant:


30.  The applicant complained that her and her minor son’s eviction had been ordered by the courts unfairly and without their personal situation being taken into account. She also complained that the process of enforcing the eviction order had been brutal and arbitrary. The applicant invoked a number of the Convention provisions in respect of the above-mentioned complaints. The Court, being master of the characterisation to be given in law to the facts of the case, considers that the above-mentioned complaints fall to be examined under Article <mask> of the Convention. This provision reads as follows:


153.  The applicants maintained that the search conducted at their home had not been “in accordance with the law” and could not be regarded as being necessary in a democratic society and had therefore been in breach of Article <mask> of the Convention. They also contended that the first applicant could claim to be a victim of the alleged violation because he had been staying overnight at the other applicants’ house. The applicants further maintained that in the course of the search USD 12,000 and RUB 40,000 had been stolen from their house, and claimed that the failure to investigate these allegations amounted to a breach of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.


11.  The Government contended that the applicant had not exhausted domestic remedies. They maintained that, in the context of the criminal proceedings against the applicant, the High Court could only examine the conformity of the interception with the legal norms then in force and that no complaint under Article <mask> of the Convention had been raised in that regard. Moreover, the applicant had had a remedy at his disposal in the form of a civil action for damages, but had failed to use it. The Government provided copies of the decisions delivered by the domestic courts in a case in which a claimant had successfully brought a civil-law action.


59.  The applicant stressed the social and economic problems she faced on account of her illegal status in Latvia. She could not work legally or receive allowances or social security benefits; moreover, she lived under constant threat of losing the only accommodation she had. With regard to the regularisation of her daughter’s stay and her subsequent naturalisation, the applicant considered that these measures did not afford adequate redress for the damage they had both sustained as a result of their ordeals. In sum, there had been a violation of Article <mask> of the Convention.


41.  The applicant complained of a breach of Article <mask> of the Convention on account of the outcome and the length of the Hague Convention proceedings. The applicant also argued that the breach of Article 8 of the Convention resulted from the domestic court’s decisions to entertain E.N.’s divorce petition and to issue interim orders on the child’s residence and child support when the Hague Convention proceedings were pending.


25.  The applicants complained that the refusal of the Supreme Court of Cassation to allow the second applicant to travel abroad had breached their right to respect for their private and family life, as provided for in Article <mask> of the Convention, and that they did not have an effective remedy in this respect. The relevant parts of Articles 8 and 13 read:


58.  The Government relied on the Court’s case-law in cases against Latvia to argue that the circumstances of the present case were different from cases where the Court found a violation of Article <mask> of the Convention (Lavents v. Latvia, no. 58442/00, 28 November 2002; Moisejevs, cited above; and Kornakovs v. Latvia, no. 61005/00, 15 June 2006), and were instead comparable to those where no violation was found (see Nazarenko v. Latvia, no. 76843/01, 1 February 2007, and Čistiakov v. Latvia, no. 67275/01, 8 February 2007).


77.  The applicant claimed that the refusal to exempt her from the obligation to hold a provisional residence visa and the refusal to admit her to the Netherlands breached her right under Article <mask> of the Convention. Her intention had been from the outset to settle in the Netherlands with her partner, later her husband, and this had at all relevant times been known to the Netherlands immigration authorities. The applicant submitted that the Court should place emphasis on the question as to whether a fair balance had been struck between the competing interests involved. She considered that in her case no fair balance had been struck for the following reasons.


67.  The Government submitted that the case revealed no violation of Article <mask> of the Convention. While they accepted that the relevant domestic decisions constituted an interference with the applicant’s right to respect for her family life, they contended that they had been in accordance with domestic law and pursued the legitimate aim of protecting the health and morals and the rights and freedoms of X. The Government further considered that the measures taken by the Swedish authorities had been “necessary in a democratic society”.


74.  The Government argued that the applicant had failed to exhaust effective domestic remedies. In particular, he could have appealed against the court decision of 6 December 2004 authorising the interception of his mobile telephone communications. The fact that the applicant had not been provided with a copy of that decision should not have prevented him from lodging such an appeal. Alternatively, the applicant could have complained about his telephone being tapped and the interception of his communications by the police to a higher police body, a prosecutor, or a court. Lastly, the Government submitted that the interception of the applicant’s communications had not infringed his rights under Article <mask> of the Convention. Such interception had been duly authorised by a court. The case file had contained all the relevant information and it had been accessible to the applicant and his lawyer.


31.  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.


28.  The applicant complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention of the manner in which the national court had decided on his claim against the company operating the mine. He complained furthermore under Article <mask> of the Convention of an infringement of his right to a home. Lastly, he complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 that he had been deprived of the possibility to “use freely” his property.


18.  The Government did not make any submissions under this head on their observations on the merits of the case. In their earlier observations on the admissibility of the application, however, the Government had made limited submissions under this head. In particular, they disputed the applicant’s complaint under Article <mask> of the Convention, on the basis that the notion of “home” in Article 8 could not be interpreted to cover an area of the State where one had grown up and where the family had its roots but where one no longer lived (Loizidou (merits), cited above, p. 2238, § 66).


90.  The applicants complained that their allegations in respect of Article 3 also gave rise to a violation of Article <mask> of the Convention. In addition, they complained about restrictions on visits and telephone calls. As regards the latter, the applicants submitted that they had had the right to use a telephone only twice a week and that they had often been under pressure from other inmates to terminate their telephone conversations before the allotted time had expired.


16.  The applicant argued that neither the prosecution authorities nor the District Court had carried out a thorough examination of his criminal complaint. As a result, his right to reputation, which the Hungarian authorities were under an obligation to protect pursuant to Article <mask> of the Convention, had been violated. He stressed that the impugned statement had targeted him as an official rather than a politician – a consideration ignored by the domestic authorities. In his view, the ruling of the domestic court was also incompatible with the second paragraph of Article 10 of the Convention, which provides insofar as relevant as follows:


134.  The Government considered that there had been no interference with the applicant’s right to respect for her private life and her home, because the level of noise and other alleged nuisance had not attained the minimum level of severity required by Article <mask> of the Convention. Contrary to the case of Oluić (cited above) the level of noise in the case at issue had been excessive only a few times and had not been sufficiently severe to raise an issue under Article 8. The Government firstly pointed out that the applicant’s house was located near a road. Moreover, the measurements of 5 October 2005 (see paragraphs 30 and 31 above) had showed that the level of noise had not been excessive and had not posed any threat to the health of persons living in the surrounding dwellings. The measurements of 21 January 2008 (see paragraphs 62 and 63 above) had showed that the noise had only slightly exceeded the permitted levels. It was true that this report had showed that the permitted level of noise had been significantly exceeded (by 13 and 15 dB) in the living room of the applicant’s flat on the first floor and inside the flat on the ground floor, but that had happened only when chairs were being dragged, which had been only a temporary occurrence that could not affect any of the applicant’s rights. Furthermore, the measurements of March 2008 (see paragraph 69 above) had found that the level of noise was excessive during the night, but that needed to be viewed in the context of the fact that the house was located near a road. The expert report of 14 November 2008 concerning the noise insulation in the house (see paragraphs 48-49 and 52 above) had first found the noise insulation insufficient but then, after the company had carried out the necessary work on the insulation, the report had found the noise insulation adequate. In addition, the expert report commissioned during the civil proceedings confirmed that the noise in the applicant’s flat did not exceed permitted levels, and in that regard the applicant had all the procedural guarantees of a fair trial to challenge the findings. The Government also pointed out that the expert reports had not found the level of any other emissions affecting the applicant’s flat excessive. The applicant had not argued or demonstrated that she had suffered any damage to her health or well-being as a result of the alleged nuisance or that it had adversely affected any of her property rights and interests.


137.  The Government challenged the existence of a family life in the present case, relying essentially on the absence of a biological link between the applicants and the child and on the illegality of the applicants’ conduct under Italian law. They submitted that, in view of the applicants’ unlawful conduct, no tie protected by Article <mask> of the Convention could exist between them and the child. They also argued that the applicants had lived with the child for only eight months.


73.  The applicant also complained that the domestic court had failed to secure the effective exercise of his right of contact during the Hague Convention proceedings. As a result, his contact with the child had been irregular and rare, as it had been at the absolute discretion of the abducting mother. That, in the applicant’s view, had led to the break-up of the father‑son relationship, and it had been in breach of Article 21 of the Hague Convention and in violation of his and his son’s right to respect for their family life under Article <mask> of the Convention.


31.  The Government submitted that, under Netherlands law, access arrangements could be made under Article 1:377a of the Civil Code between the child and a legal parent, and under Article 1:377f of the Civil Code between the child and a third person who had a close personal relationship with the child. The biological father was considered a legal parent if he was married to the child’s mother or if he had recognised the child. In such a situation, the legal tie between the father and the child constituted ipso jure family life within the meaning of Article <mask> of the Convention.


30.  The Government admitted that the applicants’ eviction had constituted an inference with their right set out in Article <mask> of the Convention. They considered, however, that such interference had been lawful, had pursued the legitimate aim of protecting the rights of persons eligible to social housing and had been proportionate to that aim. Lastly, the Government submitted that the flat had not been recovered by the municipality and the applicants continued to reside there.


119.  The applicant replied that the main reason why the interference had amounted to a violation of Article <mask> of the Convention was because it had been unlawful. According to the criminal procedural law, the precondition for declaring a person “wanted” by the investigative authorities was the initiation of criminal proceedings, in which the person was suspected of or charged with an offence (paragraph 42 above). In the present case, however, the authorities had implicated the applicant in a murder by posting his photograph on the boards of “wanted” persons in police stations, without ever having launched criminal proceedings against him. Consequently, the applicant had been unlawfully and libellously implicated in a very grave crime in the eyes of the public.


48.  The Government contended that Article <mask> of the Convention was not applicable in the present case, arguing that the reasons for the applicant’s dismissal from his job of religious education teacher were not pertinent to his private or family life. The Government pointed out that, when dismissing the applicant from his post, the schools had not examined any circumstances of his private and family life but had based their dismissal decision on purely formal grounds, namely the withdrawal of the applicant’s canonical mandate. At the same time, the schools had had no knowledge of the reasons for the withdrawal of the applicant’s canonical mandate; nor had it been for the schools to examine the reasons for the Church’s decision.


74.  The applicants complained of the refusal by the German courts to grant an injunction against any further publication of the photo that had appeared on 20 February 2002 in the magazines Frau im Spiegel, issue no. 9/02, and Frau aktuell, issue no. 9/02. They alleged that there had been a violation of their right to respect for their private life, as guaranteed by Article <mask> of the Convention, the relevant parts of which read as follows:


51.  The applicant disagreed and maintained that she had raised the complaint on her own behalf. She had indicated her name in “the applicant” field in the application form and it was evident that, in the absence of any specific indication to the contrary, she had complained of a violation of her rights under the Convention. She also relied on quotes from her application form to further substantiate this. The applicant indicated that her submissions had been as follows: “I consider Article <mask> of the Convention to be violated” and that she as “the mother of Oļegs Petrovs was refused rights, granted by law, to object to removal of organs”.


154.  The applicants complained that they had had no access to a court, contrary to Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, as under domestic law they were barred from bringing a civil claim to obtain compensation for the deaths of their relatives in the absence of any tangible results from the criminal investigation, and that the killings of their close relatives had constituted an unlawful and brutal interference with their family life, in breach of Article <mask> of the Convention. The respective Convention provisions in so far as relevant read as follows:


53.  The applicant’s first complaint was that the authorities had not done enough to enable him to inform his family of his arrest and placement in detention. This raises an issue under the authorities’ positive obligations flowing from Article <mask> of the Convention. The Court has had occasion to hold that in view of the deep anxiety that the disappearance of a family member can cause, even for a short period, and the consequent importance for someone who has been arrested to be able to get in touch with his or her family promptly, there is an obligation under that Article to enable an detainee to contact them rapidly after being taken into custody (see Sarı and Çolak v. Turkey, nos. 42596/98 and 42603/98, §§ 33-37, ECHR 2006-V (extracts)). In some cases this can also amount to an important safeguard to prevent arbitrary detention (see, mutatis mutandis, Kurt v. Turkey, 25 May 1998, §§ 122-24, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1998-III). Indeed, in Bulgaria such an obligation is set out in section 243 of the 2009 Act (see paragraph 26 above). As evidenced by that provision, as well as the other relevant provisions of Bulgarian law, European Union law and international law (see paragraphs 23 to 27 above), that obligation takes on an added importance when the detainee is an alien whose family may be in a different country.


105.  The Government submitted, among other arguments, that during the whole period at issue the applicant was afforded the opportunity to lead his normal and family life. Most importantly, the administrative proceedings in connection with the decision to expel the applicant from Lithuania had come to an end. The applicant was issued with a permanent residence permit. The Government could be understood as arguing that the applicant may no longer claim to be a “victim” of a violation of Article <mask> of the Convention.


249.  The applicant alleged that the restrictive guardianship regime, including his placement in the Pastra social care home and the physical living conditions there, had amounted to unjustified interference with his right to respect for his private life and home. He submitted that Bulgarian law had not afforded him a sufficient and accessible remedy in that respect. He relied on Article <mask> of the Convention taken alone and in conjunction with Article 13.


72.  The applicant firstly complained that (i) the decisions to order her to undergo a psychiatric examination and to arrest her and (ii) her detention for a total period of eighty-three days were in breach of Article <mask> of the Convention. However, the Court considers that these complaints do not raise any separate issue which is not covered by the finding of a violation of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention (see, mutatis mutandis, the D.G. judgment cited above, § 107).


101.  The applicant argued that the domestic courts had violated Article 14 read in conjunction with Article <mask> of the Convention. He maintained that in a similar case involving a fully-bodied father the courts would have not set contact at two hours per visit and four visits a month and without the possibility of the child in question being taken to the father’s home. The domestic courts had not only failed to assist the applicant, who was disabled, but they had discriminated against him with their decisions. In cases involving non-disabled parties, the Polish courts underlined that the child should be aware that he or she had two parents and should have the possibility of spending time with both of them. In the applicant’s case, this right was refused to him.


51.  The Government also noted that in the Marzari case (see Marzari v. Italy (dec.) no. 36448/97, 4 May 1999) the Court held that, although Article 8 did not guarantee the right to have one’s housing problem solved by the authorities, a refusal of the authorities to provide assistance in this respect to an individual suffering from a severe illness could in certain circumstances raise an issue under Article <mask> of the Convention because of the impact of such a refusal on the private life of the individual. In that connection they first emphasized that the applicant, as an indigent person who faced eviction, had never contacted the Zadar Welfare Centre or requested to be provided with accommodation even though in the proceedings before the Court she claimed that she had no family members who could support her and provide her with a place to live. Nevertheless, the Government stressed, the competent social services were familiar with the applicant’s situation, and were prepared, in the event of her eviction, to offer her social assistance by accommodating her in a nursing home for the elderly and the infirm or in a foster family. The administrative proceedings in which such assistance would be granted would be instituted by the Zadar Welfare Centre of its own motion, which would choose the accommodation facility and determine how the costs of such accommodation would be met. Those proceedings could also be instituted upon the applicant’s request. Pursuant to the Social Welfare Act the costs of such accommodation were to be covered from the applicant’s income. If her income was insufficient to cover the full cost, the difference had to be covered by those who were obliged to support her or, if they failed to do so, by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare. In support of their allegations the Government submitted two reports of 21 August 2009 and 17 May 2011 prepared by the Zadar Social Welfare Centre for the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare concerning the applicant’s situation.


37. The applicants claimed that the Swiss authorities had not complied with their obligations, inherent in Article <mask> of the Convention, to allow R., L. and B. to reside legally in Switzerland, thereby enabling them to enjoy family life in that country. They submitted that their interest in their children being allowed to reside in Switzerland outweighed those of the respondent State in refusing that permission. They insisted that the three children, who had been living in Switzerland illegally since 15 August 2009, were well integrated in the respondent State and especially in the school system. Therefore, no public interest of the respondent State would justify the refusal of residence permits for the children.


97.  The applicant further complained about the fact that on the night of 19 September 1999 the police officers had invited reporters from the “Antena 1” television channel to film him handcuffed, covered in blood and with his clothes torn. He also claimed that the footage taken on this occasion had been repeatedly broadcast without his consent. He relied on Article <mask> of the Convention, which reads as follows:


71.  The applicant submitted that the authorities’ refusals to transfer him to a prison closer to his home address had amounted to an unjustified interference with his right to respect for his family life guaranteed by Article <mask> of the Convention. He emphasised that he had in fact been denied any opportunity of seeing his elderly mother for many years.


36.  The applicant complained that his right to freedom of movement had been infringed and his private life affected as a result of the authorities’ refusal to issue him a passport. While the applicant himself expressly referred to Article <mask> of the Convention in this regard, the Court considers that the substance of the complaint more properly falls to be examined under Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 to the Convention (see Stamose v. Bulgaria, no. 29713/05, § 43, ECHR 2012, with further references), which reads as follows, in the relevant part:


36.  The applicant also complained about the same facts under Articles 10 (freedom of expression) and 11 (freedom of association) of the Convention. However, in the light of the considerations and conclusion above (paragraphs 30-35) in relation to the applicant’s complaints under Article <mask> of the Convention, the Court considers that it is not necessary to examine them separately under Article 10 or 11.


17.  The Government argued that the application was inadmissible for two reasons. First, as in the case of Abulail and Ludneva v. Bulgaria ((dec.), no. 21341/07, 13 November 2014), the first applicant had not raised in the domestic judicial proceedings a complaint under Article <mask> of the Convention. Second, he could have brought a tort action against the State, in view of the fact that the decisions concerning his detention pending expulsion had been quashed.


88.  The applicants alleged that the failure to treat their daughter correctly and in time, which had led to the deterioration in her health and her subsequent death, and the manner in which the District Court had dealt with their action were in breach of their right to respect for their private and family life under Article <mask> of the Convention, which, in so far as relevant, provides as follows:


23.  The applicant complained that the disclosure of information of a medical nature by the CFD to her employer constituted a violation of her right to respect for private life as provided in Article <mask> of the Convention. She also alleged that the proceedings in which her action against the CFD had been examined had been unfair because the courts had adopted arbitrary decisions and failed to give reasons for them. Articles 6 and 8 of the Convention, on which the applicant relied, read as follows:


73.  The Government submitted that in his initial application to the Court and in his subsequent written submissions before the Chamber, the applicant had not alleged any failure on the part of the State to adopt sufficient legal rules and measures to regulate motor vehicle traffic on public roads. Nor had he mentioned any aspect falling within the scope of Article <mask> of the Convention.


31.  The applicants submitted that the District Court had not rejected the petition for visiting rights on the ground that the visiting rights would endanger the child’s welfare. The request had instead been rejected on the ground that not granting visiting rights to the foster parents would not endanger the welfare of the child. Such a criterion was not in accordance with the requirements of Article <mask> of the Convention. The Regional Court and the Supreme Court had not examined what would really be in the child’s interests but had concentrated on the issue of the applicants’ standing in the proceedings. They had found that because of the considerable period of time which had elapsed since the proceedings had started the applicants could no longer be considered F.’s foster parents. Such an approach was unacceptable. It was the responsibility of the Austrian courts that the proceedings had been conducted at such a slow pace and that they had consisted of a continuing exchange of submissions between the parties, the District Courts and various youth welfare bodies, whereas the authorities should have acted particularly speedily given what was at stake for the applicants and the importance the element of time has in such proceedings. Once the District Court had made its decision, the visiting rights had been refused with the argument that it had been a very long time since the child had been with the applicants. Thus, the delay caused by the Austrian courts had been used as an argument for refusing the visiting rights. The applicants did acknowledge the importance of the child’s welfare but considered that regard should also be had to the interests of the foster parents.


61.  The applicants complained, alleging a violation of their respective rights to respect for family life on account of the lack of practical opportunities for prison visits stemming from decisions to allocate prisoners to remote penal facilities and their subsequent inability to obtain transfers to other facilities. They relied on Article <mask> of the Convention, which reads, in so far as relevant, as follows:


29.  The applicants further complained that there had been an unlawful interference with their child’s right to respect for his private life in view of the dismissal of their action for damages by the lower domestic courts. In particular, they disputed the reasoning given by those courts, namely that the mental maturity of their son, who was only one day old, was not sufficiently developed for him to perceive the alleged infringement of his personality rights. The applicants relied on Article <mask> of the Convention, of which the relevant part reads as follows:


79.  The applicant complained under Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention that his deportation to Israel or the Gaza Strip, directly or indirectly, would expose him to a real risk of ill-treatment and/or death, bearing in mind that he and his family had been targeted by Israeli forces before and that he was wanted in Israel. He further maintained under Article <mask> of the Convention that his removal from Turkey would constitute an interference with the family life that he had established with his wife in Turkey.


21.  The Government alleged that there had been no violation of the applicant’s Article 13 rights, submitting that under section 78 of PACE the judge could have regard to Article <mask> of the Convention when exercising his discretion to exclude evidence from trial proceedings. However, it did not appear that the applicant had ever submitted during his trial that the intercepted messages should be excluded from the evidence under section 78 on the basis that they had been obtained in breach of Article 8, and added that in the circumstances it cannot be said that such a submission would necessarily have failed. In this way, the Government claimed that the present case was distinguishable from the above-mentioned Khan case.


108.  The applicant companies asserted that they had been directly and personally affected by the secret surveillance of the third applicant, who had been a member of their supervisory boards. They had thus been de facto victims of the violation of their rights under Article <mask> of the Convention. It was impossible to differentiate between company officials and the companies themselves. Furthermore, after submitting its observations to the Court, the second applicant company notified the Court of a new fact – according to information provided by the relevant mobile service operator, the telephone number which had been subject to secret surveillance had been registered to the second applicant company between 2003 and 2008, and not to the third applicant. In any event, the secret surveillance had been carried out in the context of the criminal investigation against the applicant companies.


40.  The applicant argued that she had properly exhausted available remedies and that any other remedies would have been redundant. She further argued that the level of noise had been such as to fall within the ambit of Article <mask> of the Convention. The exposure of the applicant and her family to the excessive noise had persisted over a period of some eight years and occurred nightly. It had caused the applicant, her husband and their daughter severe medical problems.


72.  The applicant argued that V.L.‑Ž. had not been entitled to protection of his rights under Article <mask> of the Convention because of his alleged collaboration with the Nazi regime (see paragraph 55 above). However, the domestic courts found those allegations to be unsubstantiated by any available facts, and the Court accepts their conclusion as well-founded (see paragraph 71 above). It therefore considers that nothing in V.L.-Ž.’s prior conduct deprived him of protection against false and defamatory statements.


118.  The applicants' complaint concerning their inability to enjoy family life with Aslambek Ismailov, Aslan Ismailov, Yaragi Ismailov, Khizir Ismailov and Yusi Daydayev concerns the same matters as those examined above under Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention. Having regard to its above findings under these provisions, the Court considers that this complaint should be declared admissible. However, it finds that no separate issue arises under Article <mask> of the Convention in this respect (see, mutatis mutandis, Ruianu v. Romania, no. 34647/97, § 66, 17 June 2003; Laino v. Italy [GC], no. 33158/96, § 25, ECHR 1999‑I; and Canea Catholic Church v. Greece, judgment of 16 December 1997, § 50 Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1997‑VIII).


18.  The applicant complained that he had been dismissed from his position of Vice-President, three years and ten months before the statutory date of his term’s expiry, by means of an ad hominem legislative measure. In the initial application of 20 June 2012 he invoked Articles 6, 13 and 14 of the Convention, as well as Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, and contended, in particular, that his dismissal had ruined his career and reputation as well as his social and professional relationships and had also resulted in his unjustified deprivation of the peaceful enjoyment of the benefits that would have been due to him during his term of office. In a memorial summarising his arguments following the disjoinder, on 19 March 2014, of the present complaint from the initial application (see paragraph 1 above), the applicant also invoked Article <mask> of the Convention and explicitly argued that the termination of his mandate had violated his right to respect for private life, including the development of relationships of a professional nature.


52.  The applicant furthermore underlined that the mani pulite campaign had been conducted in an unfair way and pursuing a political aim. In particular, a number of violations of the secrecy covering the investigations were committed in order to attract the attention of the media. He concluded that by releasing the interceptions into the public domain the Italian authorities had failed to respect the positive obligations imposed on them by Article <mask> of the Convention.


48.  The Government noted that the necessity of the measure had been assessed twice, with a possibility of rejection – first by the Attorney General and subsequently by the Vilnius Regional Court. The contested operational measure had been necessary and had been applied in the interests of national security, public safety and the prevention of crime. The authorities had had operational information about the applicant’s possible involvement in criminal activities. The applicant had close connections with J.B. and persons from J.B.’s milieu. Most importantly, in the course of the operational investigation in respect of J.B., the authorities had learned about his threats to the State President. That information had later been confirmed when intercepting the applicant’s telephone conversation with J.B., in which the latter used psychological pressure and demanded that his requirements be reported to the head of State. Subsequently, J.B. had been convicted of having threatened the State President. The Government also observed that both J.B. and the applicant had had close relations with the State President and had played a significant role in the political activities of the President’s political party and his electoral campaign; at the time of surveillance the applicant had been a member of the Vilnius City Municipal Council. In this connection the Government also referred to the Court’s judgment in Craxi v. Italy (no. 2) (no. 25337/94, § 64, 17 July 2003), submitting that politicians inevitably and knowingly laid themselves open to close scrutiny by both journalists and the public at large. Therefore, even acknowledging that no investigation had been carried out by the SSD in order to reveal the circumstances in which the journalists had obtained the recording of the intercepted conversation, the question of fulfilment of the State’s positive obligations under Article <mask> of the Convention could not arise.


75.  The applicants replied that they had used the remedies which could directly provide them with adequate redress. Those that they had left unexplored were neither adequate nor effective. The eviction procedure under section 45 of the 1951 Property Act was only applicable to a flat’s owner, whereas in the present case the nuisances had been created by tenants. In any event, that procedure was quite burdensome when compared with the quick and effective remedies that they had used. A claim under section 109(1) of the Act would not have been effective either. Firstly, that provision was very general. Secondly, as was evident from the domestic courts’ case‑law, any claim under it would have been premised on showing that the activities in a neighbouring flat were unlawful, which could be determined only in separate proceedings concerned with the legality of the works in the flat. The domestic case‑law also showed that that such a claim could be successful only if it touched upon the technical aspects of a reconstruction in a neighbouring property. Moreover, such a claim protected directly the integrity of a property, not the private lives or homes of those living in it. By contrast, section 38 of the 2001 Territorial Organisation Act and of regulation 10(3) of the Regulations on the Manner of Carrying On Commercial Activities on the Territory of the Municipality of Sofia were intended to safeguard precisely the interests protected under Article <mask> of the Convention. By asking the authorities to apply those provisions, the applicants had had recourse to the most appropriate avenue of redress.


14.  The Government submitted that the domestic courts had in essence established a violation of the applicant’s rights under Article <mask> of the Convention. Moreover, they had decided the amount of compensation based on their direct knowledge of the case and on the basis of the parties’ arguments and evidence. The applicant had been awarded compensation in respect of this breach of Article 8 and consequently no longer had victim status. The award made by the domestic courts had been reasonable in the light of the relatively short period of the applicant’s in-patient treatment and the lack of evidence of any long-lasting effects on the applicant.


78.  The Government argued that that the applicant had failed to bring his complaint before the Court within the six-month time-limit. In the Government’s view, the final domestic decision had been the judgment of the Dubrovnik County Court of 28 May 2009 and not the decision of the Constitutional Court of 26 November 2009 on which the applicant had relied when he had lodged his application with the Court. In the Government’s view, the applicant should have been aware of the case-law of the Constitutional Court to the effect that constitutional complaints brought by subsidiary prosecutors in criminal proceedings were inadmissible. Finally, the Government argued that in respect of any complaint concerning the substantive aspect of Article <mask> of the Convention the six-month time-limit had to be calculated from 17 April 2009, the date on which the criminal prosecution against the applicant’s assailant had become time-barred.


23.  The Government submitted that it had not been confirmed that the impugned letter was indeed intercepted, and if so, whether it was intercepted and opened by the authorities. They referred to the fact that the notice on the envelope which indicated that the letter had been opened and read was not signed. Should the Court accept that this was indeed the case, the Government decline to take a stand as to whether this amounted to an interference with the applicant’s right to respect for correspondence within the meaning of Article <mask> of the Convention.


120.  The applicants alleged that the disappearance of their relative had amounted to a violation of their right to respect for family life. They also complained that the search carried out at their house on 4 February 2003 had been illegal and constituted a violation of their right to respect for their home. It thus disclosed a violation of Article <mask> of the Convention. They also referred to the unlawful seizure of their property during the search and relied on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention. These Articles provide as follows:


38.  The Government noted that the respondent State's positive obligation, which was inherent in the effective respect for family life, was not absolute. Referring to the Court's case-law, they admitted that domestic measures hindering the mutual enjoyment by parent and child of each other's company amounted to an interference with the rights under Article <mask> of the Convention. Such interference constituted a violation of that provision unless it was “in accordance with law”, pursued an aim or aims that were legitimate under paragraph 2 of Article 8 and could be regarded as “necessary in a democratic society”. The Government further stressed that in assessing whether or not a refusal of access to the non-custodial parent was in conformity with Article 8, the interests of the child predominated.


28.  The applicant submitted, relying on the Court’s findings as to the existence of family life for the purposes of Article 8 in Boughanemi v. France (judgment of 24 April 1996, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1996-II, pp. 607-08, § 35) and C. v. Belgium (judgment of 7 August 1996, Reports 1996-III, pp. 922-23, § 25), that the only important factor in determining the existence of “family life” was the tie between himself and A. already created by the mere fact that he was her biological father, without the need to rely on additional circumstances to demonstrate the existence of other bonds between them. According to the applicant, family life within the meaning of Article <mask> of the Convention existed ipso jure between him and A. on the ground of his biological fatherhood.


31.  The Government accepted that the ruling by which the applicant was partly deprived of her legal capacity had amounted to an interference with her right to respect for her private life under Article <mask> of the Convention. However, in their view the interference had been based in law, had pursued a legitimate aim and had been proportionate to the aim sought. The legal basis for the interference had been section 159 of the Family Act. The ruling in question had been adopted in order to protect the applicant, as it had been established that she was not able to look after her own rights and interests in terms of disposing of her assets and making decisions concerning her medical treatment. The applicant had run up debts of about HRK 40,000, whereas her monthly pension amounted to about HRK 3,950.


28.  The Government submitted that the applicants had failed to prove any non-pecuniary damage beyond that for which the domestic courts had already awarded compensation. In their submissions to the domestic courts the applicants had never referred to any case-law of the European Court to prove that the award needed to be increased. The Government argued that the present case did not differ in any significant manner from that of Pentiacova and Others v. Moldova ((dec.), no. 14462/03, ECHR 2005-I), in which the Court had found no violation of Article <mask> of the Convention in respect of the State’s insufficient funding of haemodialysis.


64.  The Government argued that the applicant had failed to exhaust domestic remedies. They firstly pointed out that he had failed to submit his complaints about the insufficient contacts with his child to the social services which could have taken necessary measures to remedy his situation. Secondly, they stressed that he had failed to make the same complaints he had raised before the Court under Article <mask> of the Convention in his constitutional complaint lodged with the Constitutional Court.


63.  The Government pointed out that for both the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court, the point of departure had been that, while establishing a family-law relationship between the applicant and S. through recognition might serve interests protected by Article <mask> of the Convention, it might also harm S.’s interests as protected by that provision; a balance had therefore to be struck between the competing interests of the applicant and the child.


40.  The applicant also complained under Article <mask> of the Convention that he had not been allocated a replacement flat in lieu of the one over which he had had an occupancy right and which had been destroyed during the war. However, the Convention does not guarantee a right to be provided with a home (see Chapman v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 27238/95, § 99, ECHR 2001‑I). The interests protected by the notion of a “home” within the meaning of Article 8 include the peaceful enjoyment of one’s existing residence. Accordingly, this complaint is incompatible ratione materiae and must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.


40.  The applicant originally complained under Article 10 about the refusal of the domestic courts to issue him with copies of the minutes of the hearings in the criminal proceedings against him and of the video of his arrest. The Court considered that it was more appropriate to examine this complaint under Article <mask> of the Convention. The applicant further complained under Article 8 of the Convention that his telephone conversations had been illegally recorded by the person who had set him up. Article 8 reads as follows:


24.  The applicant complained about the search of his house. As in the proceedings before the Constitutional Court, he alleged a breach of his rights as a result of (i) the court's decision to order the search and the search as such, and (ii) procedural shortcomings in the way in which the police had proceeded. He relied on Article <mask> of the Convention, which in its relevant part provides:


34.  The applicant submitted in reply that a person’s name was part of his private life. Article <mask> of the Convention conferred on an individual the right to decide whether and under what conditions third parties could use his name for advertising purposes. He emphasised that such protection also covered an individual’s forename where its use would make it possible to identify the individual concerned, as in the present case, because otherwise the company would not have confined itself to using his forename. He further pointed out that in the instant case he was relying not so much on his right to protection of his reputation as on his right to his own name and the freedom to make his own decisions as to who should be allowed to use it for advertising purposes. Moreover, he had not forfeited his right to protection of his reputation simply because he had published his book. Therefore, the applicant contended that this complaint fell within the scope of Article 8 of the Convention.


125.  The Government admitted that there had been an interference with the applicant’s right to respect for his home. However, they considered it to have been in compliance with the requirements of paragraph 2 of Article <mask> of the Convention. The Government observed that the search of the applicant’s home had been based on the judicial ruling of 19 May 2004 and that it had been necessary for the prevention of crime. While the aforementioned ruling had concerned a criminal investigation in respect of a different person, Mr B., it had become known to the investigator that the applicant might have been involved in the production and sale of illegal drugs. Accordingly, it had been legitimate to verify this information by way of a search. Lastly, the Government emphasised that the lawfulness of the search in question had been reaffirmed by the courts of three levels of jurisdiction in the course of the trial and appeal proceedings.


66.  The applicant argued that the administrative removal order and its possible enforcement constituted an interference with his “family life”. The applicant was living with his common-law wife Ms A. and had fathered two of her children; both had his patronymic; the son also had his family name on his birth certificate. The national courts did not examine the matter relating to Article <mask> of the Convention.


32.  The applicant further complained under Article <mask> of the Convention that on 30 December 2001 police officers had entered the front garden of her house by climbing over the fence without any proper authorisation and had accordingly violated her right to respect for her home. She also complained that on an unspecified date prior to 30 December 2001 the police officers had entered her house in her absence and carried out a search without any authorisation. Article 8 reads as follows:


51.  The Government maintained that the application was inadmissible because the applicant had not exhausted the domestic remedies in respect of claiming damages from the state due to the alleged violation of Article <mask> of the Convention. They referred to, inter alia, the Swedish Supreme Court’s decisions and judgments of 9 June 2005 and 21 September 2007 as well as the Chancellor of Justice’s decision of 23 June 2009 (see paragraphs 45-47), in which individuals had been awarded compensation for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage due to the violation of different Articles of the Convention. They also pointed out that the Svea Court of Appeal had, in a judgment dated 12 January 2006, concluded that there had been a violation of Article 8 and that non-pecuniary damages should be awarded on the basis of the principle established in the Supreme Court’s judgment NJA 2005 p. 462. In the Government’s opinion, Swedish law thus provided a remedy in the form of compensation for both pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage in respect of any violation of the Convention, including under Article 8, at the time when the application was lodged with the Court. The application was lodged with the Court one and a half years after the delivery of the first of the mentioned Supreme Court judgments and one year after the Svea Court of Appeal’s judgment concerning Article 8 in particular. Accordingly, the legal position under domestic law had to be considered to have been sufficiently clear at the time when the present application was introduced before the Court.


174.  The applicant alleged that her right to respect for her private life had been breached, as on 28 May 2003 the State authorities had called the press, who took photographs of her when she was being transferred by force to the Socola hospital and published them in various newspapers. She relied on Article <mask> of the Convention, which, in so far as relevant, provides:


42.  The Government referred to the Constitutional Court's judgment of 3 October 1989 and to the case-law of the Commission (see Zukrigl, decision cited above, and H.F. v. Austria, no. 22646/93, Commission decision of 26 June 1995, unreported), pointing out that the Commission had found no indication of a violation of Article <mask> of the Convention either taken alone or in conjunction with Article 14 in respect of Article 209 of the Austrian Criminal Code. As to Sutherland (cited above), the Government pointed out that there was an important difference, namely that under Article 209 the adolescent participating in the offence was not punishable. Moreover, they referred to the fact that, in 1995, Parliament had heard numerous experts and had discussed Article 209 extensively with a view to abolishing it, but had decided to uphold it, as the provision was still considered necessary, within the meaning of Article 8 § 2 of the Convention, for the protection of male adolescents.


51.  The Government requested that the case be “struck out”, as the applicants could no longer claim to be “victims” of a violation of Article <mask> of the Convention, given that they had obtained the visas. They explained that the French authorities had agreed in principle to family reunification (see paragraph 9 above) and that it was only the discovery of the irregularities in the civil-status documents submitted in support of the visa applications which had delayed the issue of these visas. They had been issued as soon as the Yaoundé tribunal de grande instance’s judgment of 3 June 2010 had been brought to the authorities’ attention. Examination of a possible violation of Article 8 § 1 of the Convention had thus ended at the stage of evidence of the documents’ authenticity; verification of the genuine nature of the applicant’s filiation had been essential standard practice, was in accordance with the legislation and could not be contrary to the stipulations of Article 8.


61.  The applicant further expressed doubts as to the “lawfulness” of the interference. Firstly, in her view, section 38 of the Aliens Act was to be read in conjunction with section 49, which stated that international treaties took precedence over domestic legislation. The Latvian authorities should therefore take account of Article <mask> of the Convention, which guaranteed the applicant’s right to respect for her private and family life and constituted a reason for not deporting her. Secondly, the applicant challenged the Government’s argument that her registration of a residence in Russia had automatically cancelled out – or “rendered invalid” – her residence registration in Latvia. On the contrary, her residence permit had been valid until 9 April 1998, when the Directorate had removed her name from the register of residents and issued an order for her deportation; hence, her residence in Latvia had been perfectly legal until then. Lastly, the applicant contested the view that the effects of the provisions in question were foreseeable. In her opinion, it was not obvious who was or was not covered by the Non‑Citizens Act, a fact demonstrated by the numerous sets of judicial proceedings which had been brought on that very subject.


44.  The Government accepted that A. had not been detained for psychiatric treatment after his conviction on 7 January 2002. They further recognised that despite the District Court having been notified by a letter dated 15 January 2002 that A. had been released from hospital on 14 January 2002 the District Court had only ordered his detention for treatment on 22 January 2002, following the applicant's filing of a new criminal complaint. This, by the Government's own admission, rendered the applicant's complaint under Article <mask> of the Convention “not manifestly ill-founded”.


48.  The applicant claimed that he had been discriminated against in the enjoyment of his right to respect for his private life when compared both to fathers whose paternity had been established on other grounds and to mothers because, unlike him, they were entitled to request the Prosecutor General to challenge paternity on their behalf. In connection with this complaint the applicant also alleged a lack of an effective remedy. He relied on Articles 13 and 14, read in conjunction with Article <mask> of the Convention.


118.  The applicants alleged that the intrusion by Russian servicemen into their house on 9 April 2003 had infringed their right to respect for their home. They also complained under the same head that their right to respect for family life had been breached as a result of Akhmed Shaipov’s abduction. They relied in this respect on Article <mask> of the Convention, which provides:


105.  The applicant alleged that the authorities had allowed the so-called “Wildstein list”, containing names of persons whose files had been collected by the Institute, to be leaked and made public. In addition, she averred that the State had failed to take adequate steps to inform the public about the actual character of the impugned list. These facts, in her view, amounted to a breach of her right to respect for her private life under Article <mask> of the Convention.


171.  The Government further argued that the alleged interference with the applicants’ rights secured by Article <mask> of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 had been lawful, as the counter-terrorist operations in the territory of the Chechen Republic, in the context of which the strike of 12 September 1999 had been performed, had been carried out on the basis of the Suppression of Terrorism Act of 25 July 1998 and “relevant regulations of State bodies”. They further insisted that the strike resulting in the damage to or destruction of the applicants’ homes and property had been necessary in order to suppress the criminal activity of members of illegal armed groups and to prevent terrorist attacks they had been preparing. Lastly, the Government submitted that the applicants could have obtained compensation for the alleged damage in civil proceedings.


85.  The Government maintained that the cemetery had been built in the interests of the villagers of Tatariv, as there had been absolutely no other place in the mountainous region near the village that could be used for a cemetery. They further stated that while it was true that the cemetery had been built in breach of environmental health laws and regulations as it had lacked the health protection zone required by law, the authorities had done all they could to prohibit burials and to provide the applicant with an opportunity to be re-housed, even though such an obligation to resettle had not existed in law. According to them, he had continuously rejected such proposals. In this respect they supplied letters of 10, 15 and 16 December 2009 from Tarariv Council and the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional State Administration, in which the municipal authorities stated that the applicant was not interested in resettlement (see paragraph 34 above). The Government accepted that the fact that the cemetery was placed on the VL plot engaged State’s positive obligations under Article <mask> of the Convention.


49.  The Government submitted that the authorities had taken all the necessary steps that could reasonably be demanded of them. They stressed the complexity of the matter and the fact that the parties were in conflict. They submitted that the courts concerned had held many lengthy hearings and heard witnesses. The Government concluded that the length of the proceedings to change the residence order, instituted by the applicant on 8 April 2008, did not amount to a breach of the applicant's right to respect for his family life under Article <mask> of the Convention.


41.  The applicants complained under Article 6 § 1 and Article <mask> of the Convention about the unfairness of the proceedings and of an infringement of their right to private life. They argued that the domestic courts had erred in finding that the land had been assigned and sold to them unlawfully. They also submitted that the domestic courts should have rejected the former owner’s civil claim as time-barred. The Court considers it appropriate to examine this complaint solely under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.


58.  The applicant submitted that, under the Court’s case-law, she should not be required to have recourse both to civil and criminal remedies in respect of the alleged violation of Article <mask> of the Convention. If there was more than one remedy available, the applicant need not exhaust more than one (see Yağcı and Sargın v. Turkey, 8 June 1995, §§ 42-44, Series A no. 319‑A). She further referred to a judgment in which the Court had found that the applicants, having exhausted all possible means available to them in the criminal-justice system, were not required, in the absence of a criminal prosecution in connection with their complaints, to embark on another attempt to obtain redress by bringing an action for damages (see Assenov and Others v. Bulgaria, 28 October 1998, § 86, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1998‑VIII).


233.  The Government stressed that Article <mask> of the Convention did not include the right to buy a home, but only protected a person’s right to respect for his or her present home (see Sorić, decision cited above). As the SZ protected the legal status of former holders of occupancy rights, by guaranteeing them tenancy for an indefinite period and a non-profit rent, the applicants’ direct possession of the dwellings was not in any way disturbed by the impugned provisions. As the Constitutional Court pointed out, the holders of occupancy rights and their spouses and close family members had the right to continue to live in denationalised dwellings in conditions comparable to those in other European countries (paragraph 65 above).


32.  The Government accepted that the impossibility for the applicant to have his father's paternity established after the expiry of the five-year time-limit had constituted an interference with his private life under Article <mask> of the Convention. The impugned measures had had a basis in Finnish legislation, namely in section 7, subsection 2, of the Implementing Act of the Paternity Act.


102.  The applicants stated at the outset that the Court was required to rule solely on the disputed measures taken by the Italian authorities in respect of the child, and then only on the basis of Article <mask> of the Convention, for the purpose of determining whether there had been a violation of the applicants’ private and family life. In their view, given the Chamber’s decision to declare inadmissible the complaint concerning the refusal to register the child’s Russian birth certificate in Italy, the Court was not required to rule on whether a State’s decisions to authorise or prohibit the practice of gestational surrogacy on its territory, or the conditions for recognition of a parent-child relationship in respect of children legally conceived in another country, were compatible with the Convention.


42.  The applicant complained of a violation of her private and family life on the ground that, firstly, the body of her stillborn child had been taken from her and buried without her knowledge in a communal grave in the cemetery and, secondly, that it had been transported from the hospital to the cemetery in an inappropriate vehicle. She relied on Article <mask> of the Convention, which reads as follows:


230.  The Government submitted that the applicant had failed to exhaust the domestic remedies, as he had never raised any of the specific allegations in the present complaint before any domestic authority and had never relied on Article <mask> of the Convention, or provisions of domestic law of the same or a similar nature, in his applications to the domestic authorities. The Government noted that, under the CCrP, it was open to the applicant to complain to the domestic courts about any actions of the prosecuting or investigating authorities violating his rights. The Government acknowledged that visits to the applicant by his family (but not his lawyers) had indeed been restricted during the pre-trial investigation in the interests of justice, and that the CCrP provided a relevant legal basis for this. However, according to the Government, neither the applicant nor his family members had been prohibited from corresponding in writing.


99.  The Government contested that claim. In particular, they submitted that the Court, when deciding on his earlier application in respect of the same return proceedings, had already awarded the applicant EUR 7,500 for non-pecuniary damage for the violation of Article <mask> of the Convention (see Adžić, cited above, § 103). They urged the Court to take that sum into account.