47. Turning
to the circumstances of the present case, the Court observes that the
applicants were not suspects or accused in any criminal investigation.
The prosecutor merely conducted an inquiry into the activities of the
applicants’ religious organisation in response to complaints received by
his office. The medical facilities where the applicants underwent
treatment did not report any instances of alleged criminal behaviour to
the prosecutor’s office. In particular, it was open to the medical
professionals providing treatment to the second applicant, who was two
years old at the time, to apply or to ask the prosecutor to apply for
judicial authorisation for a blood transfusion if they believed her to
be in a life-threatening situation. Likewise, there is nothing in the
materials before the Court to suggest that the doctors who reported the
fourth applicant’s case to the District Prosecutor opined that her
refusal of a blood transfusion was not an expression of her true will
but rather the product of pressure exerted on her by other adherents of
her religious beliefs (see, mutatis mutandis, Jehovah’s Witnesses of Moscow,
cited above, §§ 137-38). In such circumstances, the Court does not
discern any pressing social need for requesting the disclosure of the
confidential medical information concerning the applicants. It
therefore considers that the means employed by the prosecutor in
conducting the inquiry need not have been so oppressive for the
applicants.
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