Marckx v Belgium (1979) App No 6833/74, (1979) 2 EHRR 330 (ECtHR)

Paula Marckx, an unmarried mother, challenged Belgian law which required formal recognition to establish legal ties with her illegitimate daughter Alexandra. The Court found Belgian law discriminated against illegitimate children and unmarried mothers regarding affiliation, family relationships, and inheritance rights, violating Articles 8 and 14 of the Convention.

Facts

Alexandra Marckx was born on 16 October 1973 to Paula Marckx, an unmarried Belgian journalist. Under Belgian law, no legal bond between an unmarried mother and her child resulted from birth alone. Paula Marckx recognised her daughter on 29 October 1973 and later adopted her on 30 October 1974. The applicants complained that Belgian Civil Code provisions discriminated against illegitimate children regarding the establishment of maternal affiliation, the extent of family relationships, and patrimonial rights including inheritance.

The Belgian Legal Framework

Belgian law required either voluntary recognition or court proceedings to establish maternal affiliation for illegitimate children, whereas a married woman’s child’s affiliation was proved simply by birth certificate. Even after recognition, an illegitimate child remained a stranger to the mother’s family, with limited inheritance rights and no rights on intestacy in the estates of the mother’s relatives.

Issues

The principal issues were whether Belgian law violated: (1) Article 8 alone regarding respect for private and family life; (2) Article 14 in conjunction with Article 8 regarding discrimination; and (3) Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 in conjunction with Article 14 regarding property rights.

Judgment

Article 8 – Respect for Family Life

The Court established that Article 8 makes no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate families:

Article 8 thus applies to the ‘family life’ of the ‘illegitimate’ family as it does to that of the ‘legitimate’ family.

The Court held that Article 8 imposes positive obligations on States:

respect for family life implies in particular, in the Court’s view, the existence in domestic law of legal safeguards that render possible as from the moment of birth the child’s integration in his family.

Article 14 – Discrimination

The Court found the Belgian Government’s arguments for supporting the traditional family did not justify discrimination:

However, in the achievement of this end recourse must not be had to measures whose object or result is, as in the present case, to prejudice the ‘illegitimate’ family; the members of the ‘illegitimate’ family enjoy the guarantees of Article 8 on an equal footing with the members of the traditional family.

The Court emphasised the evolving nature of Convention interpretation:

the Court recalls that this Convention must be interpreted in the light of present-day conditions.

Patrimonial Rights

The Court found matters of inheritance intimately connected with family life:

Family life does not include only social, moral or cultural relations, for example in the sphere of children’s education; it also comprises interests of a material kind.

Implications

This landmark judgment established several important principles: (1) the Convention protects illegitimate families equally with legitimate ones; (2) States have positive obligations under Article 8 to facilitate family life through domestic law; (3) the Convention is a living instrument to be interpreted according to present-day conditions; and (4) inheritance and property rights form part of family life protected by Article 8. The Court balanced legal certainty against retrospective application, dispensing Belgium from reopening legal acts predating the judgment.

Verdict: The Court found multiple violations: breach of Article 8 alone and Article 14 in conjunction with Article 8 regarding the manner of establishing maternal affiliation and the extent of family relationships with respect to both applicants; breach of Article 14 in conjunction with Article 8 regarding Alexandra’s patrimonial rights; breach of Article 14 in conjunction with Article 8 and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 regarding Paula Marckx’s patrimonial rights. No violation of Articles 3 or 12 was found.

Source: Marckx v Belgium (1979) (Application no. 6833/74)