The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled that a Croatian hospital violated the European Convention on Human Rights when it disposed of a stillborn baby as clinical waste.
On 7 August 2003 the child was stillborn in a public hospital in Split. The parents declined to take the child’s remains and left the hospital to carry out an autopsy and burial. The hospital disposed of the baby with their clinical waste. The baby’s father, Miodrag Marić, took the legal case after he could not obtain information about the final burial place of his child.
Mr Marić took civil proceedings against the hospital seeking damages for the distress caused by the manner in which the hospital disposed of the body. Split County Court found that the child’s body should not have been disposed with the clinical waste. However there was no order of damages as no provision of the law obliged the hospital to inform parents where their stillborn child was buried. The Supreme Court of Croatia confirmed this ruling.
The ECtHR found that the hospital had violated article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights, the right to family and private life. The court rejected the claim of the Croatian Government that Mr Marić had tacitly accepted that the child’s body would be disposed of in this way as there were no documents or consent forms relating to the disposal of the remains. As the Government had not cited any legislation that endorsed the method of disposal the court found that it was unlawful. As the disposal was contrary to domestic law it violated article 8. Mr Marić was awarded €12,300 in damages.
Click here to read the Court’s judgment in full.