Norway and the Right to Respect Family Life from the Perspective of the European Court of Human Rights

Abstract

Norway regularly ranks very high in reports for best countries to raise children and it is considered by many as a leader in the field of human rights. The country is not only a donor of various EEA grants for projects for children at risk, but also a direct partner for sharing good practices. On the other hand, there is strong international criticism for the actions of its Child welfare service called Barnevernet. It is blamed for taking children away from families for controversial reasons and not arranging sufficient measures to enable reunification of families as parents benefit from few visitation rights (2 times for 2 hours per year under supervision, or less). There are also complaints about forced adoption of the children to foster parents. The supreme authority that decides whether this is a human rights violation or not is the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The paper therefore analyses the ECHR decisions connected to Norway, especially cases connected to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights – right to respect for private and family life – and offers a quality and quantity analysis of it. Methods: Analysis of 119 ECHR cases and judgements within the HUDOC database and other relevant statistics and documents.

Keywords

• article 8 european convention on human rights
• barnevernet
• norway
• human rights
• echr
• key case strand lobben vs. norway