The Constitutional Court has allowed adult children to seek the deprivation of rights of abusive parents.
The Russian Constitutional Court has secured the right of adult children to seek the deprivation of rights from parents who abused them as children. reported lawyer Mari Davtyan, who represented the applicant in the Constitutional Court.
Previously, courts could dismiss such claims if the child had already reached adulthood: it was believed that parental rights had ceased by that point, and therefore there was nothing left to deprive. The Constitutional Court ruled that such a formalistic approach did not protect human rights.
The Constitutional Court noted that such cases involve more than just property matters. For example, a parent will no longer be able to claim a child's inheritance or demand support in old age. The most important thing is to protect the dignity and rights of the victims.
"...for the applicant, it was important that she no longer wanted any contact with her father. For her, deprivation of parental rights was the only way to permanently end any connection with this man.",” explained lawyer Davtyan.
In 2021, a woman approached Davtyan seeking to terminate her father's parental rights, claiming he had sexually abused her as a child. The rapist was sentenced to 14,5 years in a maximum-security prison colony and stripped of his parental rights to his younger children. The woman's application was denied because she had turned 18 by then. For five years, Davtyan and his client worked to have her father's parental rights terminated.
Mari Davtyan helps women who have experienced sexual violence. One of her high-profile and complex cases was defending Angelina in The Khachaturyan sisters' case.
Photo: from Marie Davtyan’s Facebook page
