Norway violated the fundamental right to family life through the actions of its child welfare services, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday.
Strand Lobben v. Norway was one of several cases appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in which parents complained that Norwegian authorities unlawfully removed their children from their homes. In Strand Lobben, a three-week-old child was taken away from his mother in 2008 based on doubts about her parenting abilities after she had requested support. The child was placed in foster care and his mother was ultimately allowed only eight hours of contact per year with her son. Eventually, all visitation rights were denied, the mother’s parental rights were removed, and the child was put up for adoption.
A concurring opinion by six judges stated, “the authorities in the present case failed from the outset to pursue the aim of reuniting the child with his mother, but rather immediately envisaged that he would grow up in the foster home. This underlying assumption runs like a thread through all stages of the proceedings, starting with the care order.”
