The European Court of Human Rights found Italy guilty of violating a child's right to family and private life.
For the judges, the child, born in 2019 in Ukraine with the use of surrogacy, was prevented from legal recognition of the filiation relationship with the biological father, making her a stateless person.
The Court also established that the Italian authorities will have to pay the child 15 thousand euros for moral damages and 9,536 for legal costs incurred by the biological father and the intended mother.
The case was brought to the attention of Strasbourg in 2021 by the father and mother, both Italian citizens, but their personal details are not indicated in the sentence.
The appeal came after the two were repeatedly refused legal recognition of the link with the little girl by the registry offices and by the Italian courts. The document specifies that "the refusal of the national authorities to recognize the biological father and the intended mother as her parents, on the one hand, and the fact that she did not have citizenship, on the other, placed her in a state of great legal uncertainty ".
The girl, says the couple's lawyer, Giorgio Muccio, has no identity documents, no health card, or access to public health and education. In the sentence, the Court of Strasbourg recognizes that the little girl, who is 4 years old, "has been kept in a state of prolonged uncertainty about her personal identity since birth", and concludes that "the Italian courts have failed to fulfill the obligation to make a quick decision to establish the legal relationship of the child with the biological father".
(Unioneonline/ss)
