On 12 November 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) decided the case of R.F. and Others v. Germany (no. 46808/16). The case concerned a rainbow family consisting of the first applicant as the genetic mother, the second applicant as her registered partner and birth mother, and the applicant as their joint child. They had complained about the fact that German law and authorities automatically recognize only the birth mother as legal parent but recognize the parenthood of the genetic mother after having legally adopted her child. In the ECtHR’s opinion, this did not violate the applicants’ right to respect for private and family life taken alone or in conjunction with the prohibition of discrimination as protected by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This blogpost suggests that the ECtHR has missed the opportunity to strengthen the rights of rainbow families.
Right To Privacy/Family Life
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Lithuania’s Constitutional Court Rules Seeing Same-Sex Relationships Won’t Turn Kids Gay
On 18 December 2024, the Lithuanian Constitutional Court held that the law, prohibiting the dissemination of public information depicting same-sex relationships is unconstitutional as it violates the freedom of thought of children and the right to found a family under the Constitution of Lithuania. The decision follows the rationale of the European Court of Human…
Palliative Care and Assisted Suicide at the ECtHR: Dániel Karsai v. Hungary
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has reviewed several cases related to euthanasia (Gard v. UK, Lambert v. France, and Mortier v. Belgium), and assisted suicide for terminally ill persons (Pretty v. UK), incurable diseases (Koch v. Germany), psychiatric disorders (Haas v. Switzerland), and the case of a physician that disseminated…
Wieder and Guarnieri v UK: A Justifiably Expansive Approach to the Extraterritorial Application of the Right to Privacy in Surveillance Cases
In September last year, a Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights delivered its judgment in Wieder and Guarnieri v. the United Kingdom (nos. 64371/16 and 64407/16), which became final in December. The judgment is an important contribution to the ever-growing international case law on the extraterritorial application of human rights. Briefly, the Court…
Life & Death, an Unstable Scale: The European Court of Human Rights Approach to Euthanasia in Mortier v. Belgium
On 4 October 2022, the European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”) issued a Chamber judgment in the case of Mortier v. Belgium. This landmark ruling is the first-ever ruling of the ECtHR on the compliance of euthanasia, once performed, with the rights protected under the European Convention of Human Rights (“ECHR”). Additionally,…
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