SECOND SECTION
CASE OF S.S. AND J.H. v. NORWAY
(Application no. 15784/19)
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
STRASBOURG
12 September 2023
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of S.S. and J.H. v. Norway,
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Jovan Ilievski, President,
 Lorraine Schembri Orland,
 Diana Sârcu, judges,
and Dorothee von Arnim, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 15784/19) against the Kingdom of Norway lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 8 March 2019 by two Norwegian nationals, S.S. (“the first applicant”) and her son, J.H. (“the second applicant”; together “the applicants”), who were born in 1987 and 2013 respectively and live in Norway, and were represented before the Court by Ms C. Hagen, a lawyer practising in Oslo;
the decision not to have the applicants’ names disclosed;
the decision to give notice of the application to the Norwegian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Mr M. Emberland, of the Attorney General’s Office (Civil Matters);
the observations submitted by the Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicants;
the comments submitted by the Government of the Czech Republic, the Government of the Slovak Republic and the Ordo Iuris Institute for Legal Culture, who had all been granted leave by the President of the Section to intervene under Article 36 § 2 of the Convention and Rule 44 § 3 of the Rules of Court;
the decision to reject the respondent Government’s objections to the examination of the application by a Committee. Having deliberated in private on 11 July 2023,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The application concerns replacement of foster care with adoption. 2. The second applicant was placed in foster care, on an emergency basis at first, four days after his birth in 2013. Ten days later it was decided that the parents should not have any contact with the child. Later that same year, a care order was issued. When he was approximately one year old, the child was moved from the emergency foster home to the foster home in which he has since remained. 3. In December 2015 the municipal child welfare services applied to the County Social Welfare Board, seeking the withdrawal of first applicant’s parental responsibilities in respect of the child and the authorisation of his adoption by his foster parents. The Board allowed the application in February 2016, but its decision was set aside by the District Court later that year. In the District Court’s judgment, no contact rights were granted. On appeal to the High Court, however, the Board’s decision was upheld and an appeal by the first applicant and the child’s father to the Supreme Court was unsuccessful. The Supreme Court gave a final judgment in the proceedings on 11 September 2018. 4. The applicants complained under Article 8 of the Convention of the decision to withdraw the first applicant’s parental responsibilities in respect of her son, the second applicant, and to authorise his adoption by his foster parents.

Outcome for Article 8: violation