Published on 30 May 2022

FIRST SECTION

Application no. 51505/20 T.T. against Poland lodged on 17 November 2020 communicated on 9 May 2022

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns a dispute under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (the Hague Convention) instituted by the applicant, a British national, to seek the return to the United Kingdom of his daughter, R.T., a minor who had been wrongfully retained in Poland by the child’s Polish mother, E.S.

The applicant lodged his request for the child’s return with the United Kingdom’s Central Authority on 3 August 2018.

On 8 February 2019 the Łódź Regional Court ( Sąd Okręgowy ) ordered R.T.’s return to the United Kingdom. On 17 July 2019 the Warsaw Court of Appeal ( Sąd Apelacyjny ) upheld the order.

On 2 and 3 September 2019 the Piotrków Trybunalski District Court ( Sąd Rejonowy ) and the Łódź Regional Court respectively, ordered that R.T. be forcibly removed from her mother’s care. The attempts to retrieve the child failed because E.S. and R.T. could not be found by the authorities, including court officers ( kurator sądowy ) and the police.

It appears that on 24 September 2020 the Supreme Court ( Sąd Najwyższy ) refused to examine a cassation appeal against the appellate court’s decision lodged by the Commissioner for the Rights of the Child ( Rzecznik Praw Dziecka ).

Relying on Article 8 of the Convention, the applicant complains of the non-enforcement of the final return order concerning his child.

QUESTION TO THE PARTIES

Is the non-enforcement of the 2019 order to have the applicant’s child returned to the United Kingdom in breach of the substantive and procedural requirements of Article 8 of the Convention?