The Human Rights Court on Tuesday denied that there had been “any violation of the right to respect for privacy” in a Portuguese citizen’s complaint against her ex-husband, who submitted “emails” as evidence in Portuguese courts.
The complaint, rejected by the Strasbourg Court, concerns the fact that the husband, in the divorce proceedings in the dispute over the parental responsibility of the couple’s two children, sent emails to the court, which he found on the family computer in court, against the spouse. November 2010, an exchange between his then-wife and male partners engaged in “informal dating” on the Internet.
Through the “emails” submitted to the court, a Spanish citizen claimed that these conversations by his then Portuguese wife, as they were proof that he had an extramarital relationship during his marriage…
In August 2011, the citizen filed an appeal with the Lisbon Family Court with a request to return his children and temporarily establish his residence in Portugal. Later, in October 2011, he filed for divorce in Portugal.
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In September 2013, the Lisbon Family Court suspended the case pending a decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union (TJEU) that a judicial authority has jurisdiction to resolve the dispute.
In June 2015, the CJUE considered that the first jurisdiction to which the claim was filed, namely the Spanish courts, was competent to rule on the case. At the end of the divorce proceedings filed in Spain, the Portuguese woman and her husband were declared divorced, while the woman’s residence rights were granted, and her ex-husband shared the communication rights with the children.
However, in March 2012, a woman filed a criminal complaint with the Portuguese prosecutor’s office, accusing her husband of violating the secrecy of correspondence under article 194 of the Criminal Code, claiming that she gained access to her account mailbox on a “date”. site ”on the Internet and printed out“ emails ”she exchanged with some men“ on the Internet, ”including documents in a case filed with the Lisbon Family Court.
In October 2012, the Portuguese prosecutor’s office ordered to suspend the process, and in November 2012, the woman asked to take part in the criminal process as an assistant (to cooperate with the prosecution) and demanded to start a judicial investigation. However, the woman did not claim compensation, and the investigating judge decided to dismiss the case.
Inconsistent The woman appealed to the Lisbon Court of Appeal, which ruled that “there was not enough evidence” to order the trial of her ex-husband.…
Under Article 8 of the Convention on Human Rights (the right to respect for privacy and correspondence), the woman complained to the Strasbourg Court that the Portuguese courts did not punish her husband for allegedly illegal access to e-mail, which she switched to dating. ‘site’.
An application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on March 29, 2014, and the judgment was rendered by a chamber of seven judges., which includes Portuguese Magistrate Justice Ana Maria Guerra Martins.
The Strasbourg Court concluded that the case concerned an interference with the applicant’s / woman’s private life by a citizen with whom she was married and not by the State. However, their complaints concerned the State’s positive obligations under Article 8 of the Convention.
Thus, the Strasbourg Court also concluded that with regard to the Portuguese legal system, given what happened (email access), the Portuguese MP started an investigation and the woman was allowed to participate in the criminal process as an assistant, which made it possible actively participate in a criminal case.
Moreover, as the judges in Strasbourg understood, the plaintiff could have filed a claim for damages by asking to institute criminal proceedings, but she did not and therefore waived this right.
With regard to email access, The Strasbourg court found that the Lisbon Court of Appeal held that the woman had given her husband full access to her website account and that, as a result, these messages were part of the couple’s private life., and agreed with the Lisbon Court of Appeal as to the relevance of these communications in the civil case at hand.
At the same time, as noted by the Strasbourg judges, the communications in question were not considered in practice, since the Lisbon Family Court had not ruled on the merits of her husband’s requests.
Consequently, the Strasbourg court decided not to see “any relevant reason” for replacing the Portuguese courts’ decision with its own, especially since the Portuguese authorities balanced the interests in the dispute in accordance with the criteria defined in their jurisprudence.
In conclusion, he considered that the Portuguese State had thus fulfilled its positive obligation to protect the rights of women to respect for their private life and the confidentiality of their correspondence, so that there was no violation of Article 8 of the Convention.
