European Court of Human Rights holds Russia violated adoptive parents’ privacy, family rights Updated

“The European Court of Human Rights held Thursday that Russia failed in many capacities to protect the private and family rights of a couple embroiled in a very public child abuse scandal.

Anton Ageyev and Larisa Ageyeva turned to the ECHR after having lost custody and visitation rights of their adopted children on the basis of allegations of abuse. After the couple’s biological son died of severe illness, the couple adopted a boy and a girl. The boy was badly burnt and checked into a hospital, at which point other signs of suspected abuse became evident. The couple claimed that their adopted son had burnt himself after an accident involving an electric tea kettle, and had also fallen down a flight of stairs.

After their parental rights were revoked, the children’s adoptions were revoked. The whole affair prompted a media scandal. In 2009 various national mass media outlets ran stories featuring photos of the injured boy and pegging his parents as deviants.

The parents requested Russian authorities to prosecute certain perpetrators for publicly exposing the adopted status of their children.

Agayeva additionally filed a defamation claim against certain perpetrators, albeit unsuccessfully. During the media firestorm she had been widely depicted as – in the words of an ECHR press release on the judgment – “a cruel and sick person” who had been drunk at the time of the boy’s accident.

Meanwhile, both parents remained at the center of a criminal investigation arising from the accident. In November 2010, Agayev was cleared of some charges, while the others were dropped. Agayeva was convicted for failure to fulfill her duties of care to minors and intentional infliction of mild harm. She was sentenced to one year and eight months of correctional labor, a punishment where an individual remains free, but is required to pay our a certain portion of his or her paycheck to the federal budget as a means of compensating for misdeeds.

The couple than filed the present complaint with the ECHR.

They claimed numerous violations of the right to a private and family life, as protected by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Convention). They complained about the removal of their children, the revocation of the adoptions, and the fact that they were prevented from seeing their children for upwards of a year.

They further challenged violations of their privacy in the forms of: hospital workers granting journalists access to the boy and exposing his adopted status, as well as the failure of the courts to protect them from defamatory statements.

With regard to the removal of the couple’s children, the Court held that Article 8 had not been violated. As explained in the Court’s release, “Given that the boy had been injured in his parents’ house and that criminal proceedings had been brought against them, the Court could accept that the authorities had reasonably considered that placing the children in public care for some time was in their best interest.”

With regard to the revocation of the couple’s adoption of the children, the Court held that Article 8 had been violated. In the Court’s view, mere suspicion of child abuse is not enough to justify such a revocation, and in fact the relevant authorities had “unanimously praised the conditions” that the children had been living in with their family prior to the removal. Furthermore, the revocation decision was made without an adequate assessment of the existing family bonds. And most of the charges pending against the parents were dropped. Thus considering the totality of the circumstances, the Court felt that the revocation of the children’s adoption lacked proper justification.

Likewise, the loss of visitation rights for upwards of a year constituted a violation of Article 8 as it resulted from the illegitimate adoption revocation.

The head of the boy’s hospital, acting in the capacity of a Moscow city government official, had authorized hospital employees to release photographs and other information about the child to members of the press. This was deemed by the Court to have violated Article 8. Likewise, the governments failure to effectively investigate such unauthorized disclosures constituted a violation of Article 8.

Finally, the Court held that the Russian courts failed to protect Agayeva by failing to allow her to pursue defamation proceedings against journalists and publications that had depicted her as a degenerate.

The Court ordered Russia to pay the couple a total of 67,100 in non-pecuniary damages and legal costs.”

ECHR holds Russia violated adoptive parents’ privacy, family rights

[RAPSI News 4/18/13]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

 

Update:“A Lake Elsinore mother of four is marking a sad anniversary this month as the second year without her adopted daughter draws to a close, while the fight continues to free the child and thousands like her living in Russian orphanages.

“I’m holding onto hope that I’ll have her with me this time next year,” Katrina Morriss, co-founder of Parents United for Russian Orphans, told City News Service. “I feel like I have to keep fighting. I’m probably wishing for a miracle, but the alternative is, my little girl grows up in an institution.”

In December 2012, Morriss said she and her husband were denied access to then-7-year-old Natasha after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law an immediate ban prohibiting the adoption of Russian children by American families. Dozens of would-be adoptive parents in the United States were affected.

The stated purpose was to prevent Russian orphans from being placed in potentially abusive households. But according to published reports, the Kremlin’s act appeared to be payback for U.S. sanctions following the death of a lawyer who had uncovered wide-ranging financial corruption by Russian police and other officials, resulting in his arrest on reportedly trumped-up charges. He died in custody.

“The lives of children should not be about politics,” Morriss told CNS. “There are 100,000 kids available for adoption, living in Russian orphanages. They shouldn’t grow up that way. The ones like our Natasha have minimal chance of being adopted because of severe disabilities. So they’re left in these horrible conditions.”

Natasha, now 9, has Down syndrome. According to Morriss, she has been able to send gifts and pictures to the Moscow orphanage where the girl is kept, but otherwise has had no contact with her.

At the time Putin implemented the ban on Dec. 28, 2012, 300 special needs children had been matched with adoptive parents from the U.S., according to Parents United for Russian Orphans. Around 30 remain institutionalized.

According to Morriss, Russian authorities claim the other 270 children were provided homes by Russian citizens or citizens of the two countries exempt from the ban — Italy and Spain.

Morriss and her husband Steve, along with 20 other American couples, filed a lawsuit in the European Court of Human Rights seeking to have the adoption ban invalidated.

“We have Russian attorneys working on the case, and they’re very passionate. They’re working more for the children than us,” Morriss said. “If the court rules in our favor, we don’t know that Russia will honor the ruling. But it’s worth a try.”

The first hearing is Jan. 15 in Strasbourg, France.

Putin cited the deaths of 20 Russian children who had been adopted by Americans as motivation for imposing the ban. Morriss pointed out that the most disturbing case involved a months-old infant left in a car for an entire day after her father went to work and forgot about her.

“No child should be abused or killed after coming to the U.S. The idea is to make things better for the kids,” Morriss said.

The stay-at-home mom noted that 60,000 Russian children have been adopted by U.S. citizens over the last 20 years.

“The chances of a child dying in a Russian orphanage are a lot higher,” she said. “The conditions have been well-documented. They’re extremely poor.”

Her group has lobbied Congress for help breaking down barriers, but the effort has yielded little.

“They’re kind of like, ‘Sorry, that’s the way it is,”’ she told CNS. “We can’t accept that. The people of this country and Russia should be outraged enough until something is done. We can’t leave these children behind.””

Lake Elsinore Mom Fights for Release of Child from Russian Orphanage[Lake Elsinore Patch 12/18/14 by Renee Schiavone and Paul Young]