Künsberg Sarre and Others v. Austria, ECtHR (Fourth Section), app. no. 19475/20 and others, 17 January 2023

Ex officio removal of the noble prefix “von” and the right to the name. Violation of Art. 8 ECHR. 

Art. 8 ECHR 

1. The surname pursues a twofold purpose: on the one hand, it satisfies the public interest of identifying a person and identifying a kinship link with a family; on the other hand, it also relates to personality rights, becoming part of a set of factors that combine to constitute a person's identity.

2. Any changes to the surname must be justified in the light of a legitimate aim, a public interest or a pressing social need, to be assessed on a case-by-case and strict case-by-case basis. 

3. In the present case, the Court finds that the applicants had used their surname for a very considerable period of time during which they had developed a legally relevant interest in keeping it in use as a medium for identifying family, kinship ties and personal identity. This interest should have been duly taken into account by the competent national authorities, who did not correctly balance the egalitarian rationale of the Law on the Abolition of Nobility and the applicants' enjoyment of their right to a name under Article 8 ECHR. There is a violation of the right to family life. 

(Case in which the municipality of Graz, Austria, pursuant to the Law on the Abolition of Nobility (Adelsaufhebungsgesetz) had ex officio rectified the surnames of the four applicants by removing the prefix 'von' and refused to issue a new identity card identifying the applicants with their original surnames.