PROBLEMA JURIDICĂ
Necesitatea folosirii datelor medicale în motivarea divorțului.
Faptele relevante
În divorțul litigios, instanțele franceze au utilizat un document medical al reclamantului, pe care acesta ceruse să îl excludă. Acesta contesta utilizarea și divulgarea datelor sale medicale.
Soluția
Curtea constată încălcarea art. 8 din Convenție: utilizarea documentului nu era necesară în circumstanțele cauzei.
Motivarea, pe scurt
Datele medicale au protecție particulară. În divorț, ingerința trebuie limitată la ceea ce este strict necesar; aici documentul avea un rol secundar și putea fi exclus fără schimbarea concluziilor.
Ce putem învăța și ce limite are
Necesitatea folosirii datelor medicale în motivarea divorțului.
Nu instituie o interdicție absolută a oricărei probe medicale.
Rezumatul se bazează pe textul oficial integral al hotărârii.
Ghiduri asociate
Textul hotărârii
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Texte citate în ghiduri 14 EXTRASE
Extrasele exacte din hotărâre la care trimit ghidurile.
dispozitiv pct. 2 · textul original, în limba engleză
2. Holds that there has been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention;
Textul în documentul-sursă ↗par. 34 · textul original, în limba engleză
34. There is therefore no doubt, in the Court’s view, that the admissibility and use by the judge of the above-mentioned medical document in evidence constituted interference with the applicant’s right to respect for his private life as secured by Article 8 § 1 of the Convention. It remains to be ascertained whether the interference was justified in the light of paragraph 2 of that Article.
Textul în documentul-sursă ↗par. 40 · textul original, în limba engleză
40. The Court considers, in view of the circumstances of the case, that the aim of the impugned measure was to protect the rights of the applicant’s wife, who was seeking to establish a correlation between her husband’s aggressive behaviour and his alcohol dependence to support her petition for divorce on grounds of fault by her husband alone. Accordingly, the aim of the interference was to “protect the rights and freedoms of others”, namely the spouse’s right to produce evidence in order to succeed in her claims. Moreover, the Court need not examine the second aim alleged by the Government, the protection of the health or morals of the couple’s children, since, in any event, the existence of the first has shown that, in its principle, the impugned measure pursued a legitimate aim.
Textul în documentul-sursă ↗par. 43 · textul original, în limba engleză
43. In order to ascertain whether the impugned measure was “necessary in a democratic society”, the Court will consider, in the light of the case as a whole and having regard to the margin of appreciation enjoyed by the State in such matters, whether the reasons adduced to justify it were relevant and sufficient and whether the measure was proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued.
Textul în documentul-sursă ↗par. 44 · textul original, în limba engleză
44. The Court firstly reiterates that the protection of personal data, not least medical data, is of fundamental importance to a person’s enjoyment of his or her right to respect for private and family life as guaranteed by Article 8 of the Convention, bearing in mind that respect for the confidentiality of health data is a vital principle in the legal systems of all the Contracting Parties to the Convention. Consequently, domestic law must therefore afford appropriate safeguards to prevent any communication or disclosure of personal health data as may be inconsistent with the guarantees in Article 8 of the Convention (see Z v. Finland, cited above, § 95).
Textul în documentul-sursă ↗par. 44 · textul original, în limba engleză
44. The Court firstly reiterates that the protection of personal data, not least medical data, is of fundamental importance to a person’s enjoyment of his or her right to respect for private and family life as guaranteed by Article 8 of the Convention, bearing in mind that respect for the confidentiality of health data is a vital principle in the legal systems of all the Contracting Parties to the Convention. Consequently, domestic law must therefore afford appropriate safeguards to prevent any communication or disclosure of personal health data as may be inconsistent with the guarantees in Article 8 of the Convention (see Z v. Finland, cited above, § 95).
Textul în documentul-sursă ↗par. 45 · textul original, în limba engleză
45. The Court notes at the outset that the present case concerns civil proceedings in the area of divorce, which by definition are proceedings during which information on the intimacy of private and family life may be revealed and where it is in fact part of a court’s duty to interfere in the couple’s private sphere in order to weigh up the conflicting interests and settle the dispute before it. However, in the Court’s view, any unavoidable interference in this connection should be limited as far as possible to that which is rendered strictly necessary by the specific features of the proceedings and by the facts of the case (see, mutatis mutandis, Papon v. France (no. 1) (dec.), no. 64666/01, ECHR 2001-VI, concerning conditions of detention under Article 3 of the Convention, and H. v. France, no. 11799/85, Commission decision of 5 October 1988, unreported, concerning interference with the right to respect for family life in connection with an applicant’s detention).
Textul în documentul-sursă ↗par. 45 · textul original, în limba engleză
45. The Court notes at the outset that the present case concerns civil proceedings in the area of divorce, which by definition are proceedings during which information on the intimacy of private and family life may be revealed and where it is in fact part of a court’s duty to interfere in the couple’s private sphere in order to weigh up the conflicting interests and settle the dispute before it. However, in the Court’s view, any unavoidable interference in this connection should be limited as far as possible to that which is rendered strictly necessary by the specific features of the proceedings and by the facts of the case (see, mutatis mutandis, Papon v. France (no. 1) (dec.), no. 64666/01, ECHR 2001-VI, concerning conditions of detention under Article 3 of the Convention, and H. v. France, no. 11799/85, Commission decision of 5 October 1988, unreported, concerning interference with the right to respect for family life in connection with an applicant’s detention).
Textul în documentul-sursă ↗par. 46 · textul original, în limba engleză
46. In the particular circumstances of the case, the Court does not find compelling the Government’s argument that the breach of the applicant’s right to respect for his private life was justified. Whilst the impugned measure may appear justified at first sight, it does not stand up to closer scrutiny. As the Government themselves have acknowledged (see paragraph 30 above), the production of the disputed document was not decisive in the granting of the divorce on grounds of fault by the applicant alone and was in fact only one of the items of evidence on which the domestic courts based their findings. The relevant domestic decisions referred, above all, to testimony concerning the applicant’s alcohol L.L. v. FRANCE JUDGMENT 15 addiction and to the “duly substantiated” medical certificates referring to “the reality of the acts of violence to which [the wife had] been subjected”, thus concluding that the acts attributable to the husband constituted serious and repeated breaches of marital duties and obligations which had led to an irretrievable breakdown in the marriage. In reality, it was only on an alternative and secondary basis that the domestic courts used the disputed medical document in justifying their decisions, and it thus appears that they could have declared it inadmissible and still reached the same conclusion. In other words, the impugned interference with the applicant’s right to respect for his private life, in view of the fundamental importance of the protection of personal data, was not proportionate to the aim pursued and was therefore not “necessary in a democratic society for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others”.
Textul în documentul-sursă ↗par. 46 continuare · textul original, în limba engleză
addiction and to the “duly substantiated” medical certificates referring to “the reality of the acts of violence to which [the wife had] been subjected”, thus concluding that the acts attributable to the husband constituted serious and repeated breaches of marital duties and obligations which had led to an irretrievable breakdown in the marriage. In reality, it was only on an alternative and secondary basis that the domestic courts used the disputed medical document in justifying their decisions, and it thus appears that they could have declared it inadmissible and still reached the same conclusion. In other words, the impugned interference with the applicant’s right to respect for his private life, in view of the fundamental importance of the protection of personal data, was not proportionate to the aim pursued and was therefore not “necessary in a democratic society for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others”.
Textul în documentul-sursă ↗par. 46 · textul original, în limba engleză
46. In the particular circumstances of the case, the Court does not find compelling the Government’s argument that the breach of the applicant’s right to respect for his private life was justified. Whilst the impugned measure may appear justified at first sight, it does not stand up to closer scrutiny. As the Government themselves have acknowledged (see paragraph 30 above), the production of the disputed document was not decisive in the granting of the divorce on grounds of fault by the applicant alone and was in fact only one of the items of evidence on which the domestic courts based their findings. The relevant domestic decisions referred, above all, to testimony concerning the applicant’s alcohol
Textul în documentul-sursă ↗par. 47 · textul original, în limba engleză
47. Lastly, as the Court has already observed (see paragraph 33 in fine above), the domestic law does not afford sufficient safeguards in respect of the use of data relating to the private life of parties to proceedings of this kind, except for those guarantees referred to by the Government (see paragraph 29 above), and this a fortiori justifies strict scrutiny of the necessity of such measures within the meaning of Article 8 § 2 of the Convention.
Textul în documentul-sursă ↗par. 48 · textul original, în limba engleză
48. Accordingly, in the light of the foregoing, there has been a violation of Article 8 § 2 of the Convention.
Textul în documentul-sursă ↗par. 48 · textul original, în limba engleză
48. Accordingly, in the light of the foregoing, there has been a violation of Article 8 § 2 of the Convention.
Textul în documentul-sursă ↗
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