La (de)construcción de las relaciones de filiación y paternidad a través de la jurisprudencia del Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos

Abstract

In this paper, we examine how the European Court of Human Rights (HUDOC) has reacted to the evolution of the “new” realities of the family, in particular to what extent this court has contributed to questioning and/or reproducing how the relationship between a child and the parent is established, based, especially, on the Articles 8 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. As we will demonstrate in this paper, the definition of paternity, endorsed by the HUDOC, is not always clear for two reasons. On the one hand, even if we increasingly value the interest and the level of commitment of a parent to his child, it does not abandon the conventional parenting model or scheme. However, it adds a “new” demand for care. On the other hand, even though the emergent construction of paternity seems to be a matter of doctrinal choice, and it depends on the case. Therefore, it shouldn’t seem strange that doctrinal and moral forces interact in the process of doctrinal evolution.