ECHR rules Vatican cannot be sued in European courts

The Vatican cannot be sued in European courts because it is a sovereign state, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled Tuesday in dismissing a suit from survivors of abuse by Catholic clergy.

It was the ECHR’s first case to deal with the immunity of the Holy See, the court said.

A group of 24 Belgian, French and Dutch abuse survivors attempted to sue the Holy See and Catholic Church leaders in Belgian courts beginning in 2011, but courts in that country ruled they did not have jurisdiction over the Vatican, the European Court of Human Rights said Tuesday in explaining its ruling.

The abuse survivors — who said they were abused by priests when they were children — fought their way up through the Belgian court system before bringing their suit to the European court in 2017, the ECHR said.

The survivors argued that they had been denied right of access to a court, under article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which states that everyone is entitled to a fair trial.

The applicants first filed a class action in the Ghent Court of First Instance in July 2011. They claimed that the defendants should be liable to pay 10,000 euros (approximately $11,600) in compensation to each survivor in compensation “because of the Catholic Church’s policy of silence on the issue of sexual abuse.” In October 2013, the Ghent Court declined jurisdiction in respect of the Holy See, the ruling said.

On Tuesday, the ECHR ruled 6-1 in the case of J.C. and Others v. Belgium, saying that the Vatican is a sovereign state that can not be sued, and that there had been nothing “unreasonable or arbitrary” in the Belgian courts’ adopting that position.

The court’s decision, however, is not final and any party can request an appeal, known as a “Grand Chamber review,” within three months of the ruling.

Tuesday’s ruling comes as the Catholic Church is facing a reckoning on sexual abuse, with a growing number of survivors fighting for justice.