Background
Dora Dragoni, an acupuncturist with a history of psychiatric illness (paranoid schizophrenia, diagnosed 2010), married Turkish national Italo Divrak in October 2016. In July 2017, she gave birth to their daughter H. Following the birth, the first applicant displayed signs of psychological distress and appeared detached from the newborn. Italian social services intervened, and in August 2017 the public prosecutor sought to deprive the parents of parental responsibility and declare the child available for adoption.
The Youth Court initiated proceedings, suspended parental responsibility, and appointed an expert psychologist to assess the parents’ and maternal grandparents’ personalities and parenting capacity. From October 2017, supervised visits were arranged. In June 2018, the expert reported that the first applicant lacked necessary affective-emotional components for healthy child development, though the second applicant showed better abilities. The expert recommended a parental support programme to complete the assessment. Between July 2018 and January 2019, the court implemented enhanced contact, including longer visits and professional support meetings. Professionals noted improvements in both parents’ engagement and the child’s growing recognition of her parents.
Despite these documented improvements and reports from the applicants’ mental health centre confirming the first applicant’s clinical stability and positive maternal behaviours, the domestic courts—first the Youth Court in June 2019, then the Court of Appeal in July 2020, and finally the Court of Cassation in June 2021—declared the child available for adoption and ordered immediate termination of family contact. The courts deemed the parents’ improvements insufficient and found no prospect of improvement within a timeframe suitable for the child’s needs. Contact was interrupted and remained severed thereafter.
The Court’s Holding
The European Court held that Italy violated Article 8 (right to respect for family life) with respect to all four applicants. The Court found that the domestic authorities’ decision to declare the child available for adoption and permanently sever family contact was not proportionate to the legitimate aim of protecting the child’s interests and was not accompanied by proportionate safeguards. The domestic courts failed to recognise that the parents possessed vulnerable conditions—the mother’s mental health challenges and the father’s integration difficulties—which entitled them to additional protection and support to develop their parenting capacities.
The Court emphasised that although the parents’ parenting abilities were initially limited, the expert evidence and professional reports documented measurable improvements during the parental support programme. The domestic authorities refused to order a fresh expert assessment despite these positive developments and the parents’ materially changed personal and material circumstances (employment, stable housing, psychological stability). This refusal, coupled with the failure to implement less radical solutions before permanently severing the family bond, rendered the interference with family life disproportionate.
The Court further found violations regarding the maternal grandparents. Supervised meetings were reduced from twice to once monthly and proved insufficient to develop a meaningful relationship. The domestic authorities failed to provide counselling and support to the grandparents, particularly relevant given the parents’ vulnerable condition. The immediate interruption of contact while proceedings were still ongoing, without reconsidering whether continued contact remained incompatible with the child’s welfare, also breached Article 8. The Court noted that a new review mechanism under Italian civil procedure law could allow the authorities to re-examine the situation and consider re-establishing contact if requested.
Key Takeaways
- States must exhaust reasonable support measures and consider less radical alternatives before permanently severing family ties, particularly when parents have vulnerable conditions such as mental health illness.
- Expert assessments should be updated when material changes in circumstances occur; reliance on outdated reports when fresh evidence shows improvement breaches proportionality requirements.
- Immediate termination of family contact during ongoing proceedings, without reassessment of proportionality, violates Article 8 even where child protection concerns exist.
- Parents and grandparents facing child removal proceedings are entitled to adequate professional support and counselling to facilitate family reunification where possible.
- Domestic courts must actively consider whether adoption remains the child’s best interest when documented improvements suggest alternative protective measures may suffice.
Why It Matters
This judgment reinforces that Article 8’s protection of family life imposes positive obligations on states to support family preservation and reunification, not merely to respect decisions severing family ties. Even where child welfare concerns are genuine, states cannot simply declare children adoptable and terminate contact without first exhausting reasonable supportive interventions, updating expert assessments, or considering proportionate alternatives. The decision is particularly significant for parents with mental health conditions, who may face systemic assumptions of permanent incapacity rather than individualized assessment of their actual abilities and potential for improvement with targeted support.
For child protection authorities across Europe, the judgment establishes that a child’s long-term welfare may be better served by continued family contact with structured support than by clean severance and adoption, even when parental capacities remain limited. The Court’s emphasis on reassessing circumstances over time and maintaining relationships with extended family members reflects modern family law’s recognition that children benefit from continuity of attachment and identity connection, not merely placement stability.