ECHR rejects Czech mother’s complaint against Norway over stripping of parental rights

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that Norway’s social and judicial services did not breach international law or conventions when stripping a Czech woman of her parental rights in 2011.

Eva Michaláková was stripped of those rights due to suspicions that her children had been sexually abused, by their father. Although proof was not determined during a police investigation, her sons, then aged 6 and 3, were put into foster care.

Norwegian authorities allowed her only minimal contact with her sons – a maximum of two hours, twice a year. By late 2015, she was denied the right to have any contact with them.

The Strasbourg court unanimously concluded on Thursday that neither the Norwegian judicial system nor Czech authorities had contravened international conventions.