I have already posted the link to this but this is the reasoning behind the Charlie Gard case being inadmissible
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Gard and Others v United Kingdom
The application to the European Court of Human Rights, brought by the parents of Charlie Gard was declared inadmissible.
The parents of Charlie Gard (CG) argued under Articles 2 and 5 of the convention (on both their own behalf and on behalf of CG) that the hospital had blocked life-sustaining treatment and as such CG was unlawfully deprived of his liberty. Further, they argued under Articles 6 and 8 that the declaration by the High Court and subsequent courts was a disproportionate interference in their parental rights because the test applied had been the "best interests" of the child rather than whether he would suffer "significant harm".
The court considered whether the parents had the standing to bring this application. Under Article 34 (and in accordance with Lambert and Others v France [GC] no. 43043/14), an applicant must be able to claim to be a victim of a violation of the convention. There had been some cases where parents had been able to apply on behalf of their minor children, the two key criteria being (1) the risk that the direct victim will otherwise be deprived of effective protection of his or her rights, and (2) the absence of a conflict of interests between the victim and the applicant.
In this case, the risk that CG would be deprived of effective protection of his rights if the application could not proceed was minimised as CG was represented by an independent professional court-appointed guardian. Further, there was a conflict of interests in that there had been repeated findings in the domestic courts that what the parents sought for CG was not in his best interests. However, the court did not reach a final conclusion on this point as the court went on to examine the substantive arguments.
In respect of the parents' Art. 2 argument - that the hospital has blocked access to life-sustaining treatment - the court found that this argument was manifestly ill-founded. As concluded in Hristozov and Others v Bulgaria no. 47039/11, Art. 2 cannot be interpreted as requiring access to unauthorised medicinal products for the terminally ill to be regulated in any particular way (it was an agreed fact that the nucleoside treatment the parents wished to pursue was experimental, having never been tested on humans or animals).
The court further found that an appropriate framework was in place in domestic law (as previously found in Glass v UK no. 61827/00), that CG's wishes were expressed through his own guardian, that his parents were fully involved in the proceedings and represented, and that the hospital properly applied to the High Court to obtain a legal decision on the appropriate way forward.
There was a lack of clarity as to how the applicants were raising arguments of deprivation of liberty under Art. 5. The availability of a domestic legal framework and the possibility to apply to the domestic courts had already been established in relation to Art. 2 and so the court considered the complaint under Art. 5 was also manifestly ill-founded.
The parents' complaints under Art. 6 and 8, were also found to be manifestly ill-founded. The court found there had been an interference with the Article 8 rights of the parents. However, this interference did not constitute a violation as it is in accordance with the law, is a legitimate aim and is necessary in a democratic society. The UK's legal framework in such cases had already been established in Glass as consistent with the ECHR standards and the interference was aimed at protecting the health, morals, rights and freedoms of a minor and so was a legitimate aim.
The parents argued that the interference with their parental rights based on the "best interests" test of the child was unnecessary, and that the interference would only be justified if there was a risk of "significant harm" to the child. Firstly, the court found that it was appropriate for the treating hospital to turn to the courts as there was a conflict (this had been the point of the ECtHR's criticism in the previous cases of Lambert and Glass where there hadn't been access to court supervision). Secondly, the court considered the "best interests" test was well established in international law but that even if the test was "significant harm", the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court were justified in concluding there was such a risk. The UK Appeal Courts had reviewed the High Court's decision as well as the extensive expert evidence which concluded that CG was exposed to continued pain, suffering and distress and that the experimental treatment had no benefit and would prolong his suffering.
In conclusion, the court considered the framework as a whole had not been shown to be disproportionate. The decisions taken by the domestic courts were meticulous and thorough, ensured that all those concerned were represented throughout, heard high-quality expert evidence, accorded weight to all the arguments raised, and were reviewed at three levels of jurisdiction with clear and extensive reasoning.
The application was declared inadmissible. Basically sadly Charlie Gard's parents were unlikely ever to have won this case from what I have read above.
http://www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed178491Davel this is a very sad case and I can understand Charlie's parents wanting to do everything they could to save him but do you have an example of a defamation or libel case overturned by the ECHR?
