FOURTH SECTION       CASE OF M.T. v. UKRAINE (Application no. 950/17)         JUDGMENT  STRASBOURG 19 March 2019     This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of M.T. v. Ukraine,The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of: Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque, President, Faris Vehabović, Carlo Ranzoni, judges,and Andrea Tamietti, Deputy Section Registrar,Having deliberated in private on 26 February 2019,Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:PROCEDURE1. The case originated in an application (no. 950/17) against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by a national of the United States of America, Mr M.T. (“the applicant”), on 20 December 2016. The Vice-President of the Section decided that the applicant’s name should not be disclosed (Rule 47 § 4 of the Rules of Court).2. The applicant was represented by Mr L. Drozdovskyy, a lawyer practising in Kyiv. The Ukrainian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr I. Lishchyna.3. The applicant complained under Articles 6 and 8 of the Convention that the domestic courts had failed to establish his paternity restricting thereby his right of access to a court.4. On 20 March 2017 notice of the application was given to the Government.THE FACTSI. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE5. The applicant was born in 1946 and currently lives in Berlin, Germany.6. In 2005 he was an English teacher in a school in Kyiv, Ukraine. At that time he entered into private relations with a married woman living in Kyiv. In 2006 the woman gave birth to a child. Her husband was indicated as the father in the child’s birth certificate. In 2007 a DNA test was performed proving that the applicant was in fact the father of the child. The applicant was not prevented from having access to the child by her mother, who accepted financial support from him on a monthly basis. The applicant bought a car for the child’s mother. In 2011 he wrote a will bequeathing all his property to the child.7. The applicant had regular contact with the child until 2015 when the mother informed the applicant that she had divorced her husband and that she had decided to marry a German national and move with the child to Germany. As the applicant opposed the decision to emigrate to Germany, the mother denied him access to the child and prevented him from communicating with the child.8.

Outcome for Article 8: violation