MARCKX v. BELGIUM JUDGMENT DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE SIR GERALD FITZMAURICE 50 satisfaction as well. It could also be maintained that so long as the applicant in the case duly "claims" to be a victim of the violation alleged, the requirement is satisfied. But since, ex hypothesi, an applicant necessarily does that, this would be to remove all content from the requirement. (2) The case is evidently distinct from that of whether the complainant has suffered any concrete or other (e.g. moral) damage for which he would be entitled to compensation or other appropriate satisfaction under Article 50 (art. 50) of the Convention. There may well be cases where he has not, but where there has nevertheless been a breach of the Convention of which he has been the object, or which has affected him or his interests. The requirement in question, considered as a preliminary issue, whether of admissibility or of quasi-substance, must therefore mean that the claim shall not be a purely theoretical or hypothetical one, but that, if the alleged violation were established, the complainant would be the object or one of the objects of it, or that it would affect him or his interests. (3) But, in my opinion, it is also necessary that the complainant, or his interests, should not have been affected in a purely or largely formal, nominal, remote, or trivial way. It was for this reason that in the present case I voted against the Court’s finding that the applicants were "victims" within the intention of Article 25 (art. 25). The mother moved within fourteen days of the birth to have her child legally recognised as her daughter, and this was done. Later she carried through a legal adoption of the child, thus placing it on the same footing in law as a legitimate child except, so it seems, as regards intestacy rights in the estates of the mother’s relatives - a defect that could easily be cured by testamentary means. Had these acts of recognition or adoption not taken place or been prevented by death or otherwise, the applicants, or one or other of them, would have been the "victims" of any violation of an applicable provision of the Convention or Protocol that could have been established. But they did not fail to take place, and the mere fact that they hypothetically might not have done so does not seem to me to constitute the applicants "victims" in respect of what never happened or could only have had remote results - at least in a sufficiently substantial sense to regard them as fulfilling this condition as required by Article 25 (art. 25) of the Convention.