The couple went to the European court of human rights (ECHR) to seek redress, relying on the European convention on human rights – including articles conferring the right to a fair hearing (article 6) and the right to respect for private and family life (article 8) – to argue that Amaral’s statements damaged their reputation, their good name and their right to be presumed innocent.
But a chamber of seven judges unanimously decided that there had been no violation of article 8.
A press release issued by the ECHR said: “Even assuming that the applicants’ reputation had been damaged, this was not on account of the argument put forward by the book’s author but rather as a result of the suspicions expressed against them, which had led to their being placed under investigation in the course of the criminal investigation (the prosecutor’s office decided to take no further action in July 2008) and had led to intense media attention and much controversy.
“The information had thus been brought to the public’s attention in some detail even before the investigation file was made available to the media and the book in question was published. It followed that the national authorities had not failed in their positive obligation to protect the applicants’ right to respect for their private life.”
The judges ruled the complaint under article 6 to be inadmissible because they said the Portuguese supreme court did not appear to have made comments implying guilt on the part of Madeleine’s parents or suspicion against them.
The McCanns now have three months to appeal against the decision.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/madeleine-mccann-s-parents-lose-challenge-over-portuguese-libel-case/ar-AA121wmr?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=629f6fd9b71b4fba882cc6339145b77e