According to the law, a child has the right to contact with his parents and the person who has a close personal relationship with him. The judge can, on request of (one of) the parents or the person who has a close personal relationship with the child, establish a visiting arrangement or deny the right of access. The judge will only deny someone the right of access when the access would not be good for the child, the person is not suitable or not able to have access to the child or the child, being 12 years or older, has serious objections against access to the person. What about a sperm donor, does he have the right to contact with his biological child?
A sperm donor has the right to access if there is a close personal relationship with the child. Court judgments show that the mere existence of a biological kinship is insufficient to assume that there is a close personal relationship between the child and him. The sperm donor must present additional circumstances to the court, from which it can be inferred that this relationship exists between them.
It may for example be important that the sperm donor and the parents agreed from the start that the sperm donor should play a role in the child's life and that there was regular contact about this before the child was born. If the close personal relationship cannot be established by looking at the period before the child's birth, it can still be established if there was regular contact between the child and the sperm donor afterwards. In June 2014, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal ruled that based on these circumstances, the close personal relationship between the child and the sperm donor can be established in order to subsequently consider whether or not a visitation arrangement is in the child's interest.
In the same judgment of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal , it was ruled that if no close personal relationship could be established between the child and the sperm donor, this sperm donor could still submit a request to the court to establish a visitation arrangement. This is because the sperm donor has the right to protection of his private life (Article 8 of the ECHR). Because contact with the child is an important part of the sperm donor's identity and therefore his private life, this right can be invoked under circumstances, according to the court of appeal.
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