European Court of Human Rights

FIRST SECTION

Application no. 40378/06
Y.Y.
against Russia
lodged on 9 September 2006

STATEMENT OF FACTS

THE FACTS

The applicant, Y.Y., is a Russian national who was born in 1966 and lives in St Petersburg.

The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.

In April 2003 the applicant gave premature birth to twins at a maternity hospital in St Petersburg. One child died nine hours later as a result of respiratory failure. The other child, who was transferred to a children’s hospital for neonatal resuscitation, survived.

In May, June and August 2003 the applicant’s mother sent telegrams to the President of the Russian Federation complaining that the deceased child had been placed on a waiting list because of the limited capacity of the city hospitals with neonatal resuscitation departments and had died allegedly as a result of the lack of emergency medical treatment. She complained that the problem had allegedly a larger scale in St Petersburg and requested measures to solve it. Her application was transferred to the Ministry of Health and then to the Committee of Health of the St Petersburg City Administration.

The Committee of Health obtained the applicant’s and her children’s medical records without notifying the applicant and prepared a report which suggested that the child had been born with a grave respiratory disorder syndrome which was the cause of the death and that the child had been provided with correct treatment at the maternity hospital. On 5 September 2003 the report which contained the applicant’s and her children’s medical data was forwarded to the Ministry of Health. On 12 September 2003 the Committee of Health informed the applicant’s mother of the results of the examination of her application. On the same day it forwarded to the Ministry of Health additional information from the maternity hospital that the reasons of the applicant’s preterm birth had been her seven preceding therapeutic abortions and urogenital infection of mycoplasmosis.

The applicant brought proceedings against the Committee of Health seeking to declare that it had acted unlawfully. On 14 December 2005 St Petersburg Kuybyshevskiy District Court rejected her application on the ground that her rights had not been violated and that the application had been lodged outside the relevant time-limit. It stated, in particular, that the applicant’s medical records had been examined by doctors bound by medical secrecy and that the Ministry of Health was entitled to receive exhaustive information from the Committee of Health. The applicant appealed against the judgment. Her request for clarification of the judgment and, notably, the reasons for which her application had been dismissed was rejected by the District Court on 20 January 2006. It is unclear whether the applicant appealed against that decision.

On 14 March 2006 St Petersburg City Court upheld the judgment on appeal.

COMPLAINTS

1.  The applicant complains under Article 8 of the Convention that her personal and her children’s medical data was obtained, examined and released without her consent in breach of the relevant legislation, in particular, Article 61 § 3 of the Law on the basics of the public health legislation, which provides for a person’s consent as a general condition for release of information containing medical secrecy.

2.  The applicant complains under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that she did not have a fair hearing. In particular, the first-instance court allegedly shifted the burden of proof on the applicant in breach of the Code of Civil Procedure, its finding that the application was time-barred was erroneous and by stating different reasons in dismissing the application it allowed for different interpretation of its judgment. The appeal court’s judgment was a complete copy of the first-instance court’s judgment lacking reasons for which the applicant’s points of appeal were rejected.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

Has there been an interference with the applicant’s right to respect for her private life, within the meaning of Article 8 § 1 of the Convention?

If so, was that interference in accordance with the law and necessary in terms of Article 8 § 2?