PARIS (AP) - The European court of human rights (ECHR) sided Thursday with a French woman who had stopped having sex with her husband, saying she should not have been considered at fault on those grounds in their divorce.
Top European rights court rules woman’s refusal to have sex not at fault in divorce case
PARIS (AP) - The European court of human rights (ECHR) sided Thursday with a French woman who had stopped having sex with her husband, saying she should not have been considered at fault on those grounds in their divorce.
The ruling concerned a fault-based case in which the blame was attributed solely to the applicant. Back in 2019, a French court of appeal ruled that her refusal to have sex was a breach of a marital duty and granted the couple a divorce to her detriment.
But the ECHR ruled that the French court was wrong, condemning France for a violation of the woman's right to respect for private and family life.
"The Court considered that the reaffirmation of the principle of marital duties and the fact that the divorce had been granted on the grounds that the applicant had ceased all sexual relations with her husband amounted to interferences with her right to respect for private life, her sexual freedom and her right to bodily autonomy," the court said in a news release.