MARCKX v. BELGIUM JUDGMENT JOINT DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGES BALLADORE PALLIERI, PEDERSEN, GANSHOF VAN DER MEERSCH, EVRIGENIS, PINHEIRO FARINHA AND GARCIA DE ENTERRIA ON THE APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 50 (art. 50) 29 JOINT DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGES BALLADORE PALLIERI, PEDERSEN, GANSHOF VAN DER MEERSCH, EVRIGENIS, PINHEIRO FARINHA AND GARCIA DE ENTERRIA ON THE APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 50 (art. 50) (Translation) We were amongst those Members of the Court who voted in favour of a finding of violation under the head, notably, of Article 8 (art. 8) taken alone and of Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article 8 (art. 14+8). However, we regret that we cannot concur with the majority of our colleagues who rejected the applicants’ request for an award of compensation of one Belgian franc for "moral damage" on the ground that there was no call to afford any "just satisfaction" other than that resulting from the Court’s finding of several infringements of rights whose respect is guaranteed to the applicants by the Convention. Ms. Paula Marckx, whose maternity the law refused to acknowledge fully suffered an affront to her feelings and dignity as a mother and to her sense of family. This was because the child she brought into the world was, from the moment of birth, the object of a public discrimination as compared with legitimate children. In addition, Ms. Marckx was faced with a painful and distressing alternative: either she recognised her daughter Alexandra but thereby prejudiced the child, since her capacity to give or bequeath property to her daughter would then be restricted (see paragraph 36); or she renounced establishing a legal tie with her daughter. This situation and these circumstances are such as to make just and warranted a satisfaction distinct from the simple finding of breach of Ms. Paula Marckx’s rights, that is to say the award of the sum of one Belgian franc. This is all the more so since the pangs, anxiety and anguish which a mother may suffer in such a case were prolonged until Ms. Paula Marckx finally decided to adopt her own child in order to attenuate the effects of the discriminatory regime to which the latter was subject as a result of the recognition. In the Golder case, it is true, the Court held that the finding in the judgment of a violation of the applicant’s rights amounted to adequate just satisfaction (judgment of 21 February 1975, Series A no. 18, p. 23, para. 46) - a conclusion in law that is disapproved by certain of the undersigned judges (see the separate opinion of Judges Ganshof van der Meersch and Evrigenis, annexed to the Engel and others judgment of 23 November 1976, Series A no. 22, p. 71). The situation in the Golder case was, however, different from the situation of Ms. Paula Marckx, even leaving aside the distinctions peculiar to the breaches of the rights of the injured parties: in