MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIFE IN THE JURISPRUDENCE OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Abstract

The article 8 and 12 — European Convention of Human Rights regulate the right to family and private life and, respectively, the right to marriage. These rights have been transposed into the national legislation of the States-members of European Union. The two rights that we are speaking of, which can be found as a constitutional principle and as an ordinary law, tries to reduce the public authorities interference into the private and personal family field. The reality proves that the right to marriage has been broken by the impossibility of the spouses to marry because they can not be divorced. This is the reason why we have two different rights in European Convention: the right to private, family life and the right to marriage.

Many European states still have a limited regulation of the reasons for getting the dissolution of marriage. The European Convention has nothing to do with such cases because does not regulates the right to divorce and it would be an interference into the national law. How can a person be married again if he/she doesn’t have the possibility to divorce? In these conditions, can we take the European Convention into consideration as a real instrument of protection for the right to marriage?

The first precedent of ECHR jurisprudences limits the infringement of the right to marriage made by the national Courts because of the lack of regulations or a bad interpretation of it.