II. ÚS 1192/22

The Second Panel of the Constitutional Court (Justice Rapporteur David Uhlíř) pronounced that the ruling of the District Court for Prague 6 of 17.6.2021, ref. nos. 0 P 219/2017-1046, 51 P and Nc 216/2017, has breached the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the petitioners to a fair trial and to protection against unlawful intervention in their family life as per Article 36, paragraph 1 and Article 10, paragraph 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms and the constitutionally guaranteed right of a minor to participate in any proceedings that concern it in compliance with Article 9, paragraph 2 and Article 12, paragraph 2 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, the proposal to annul these judgements has been dismissed in the best interests of the child.

The disputed decisions were issued in guardianship proceedings, in which the courts ruled on the care for the minor who was born to intervening parties 4) in 2014. Guardianship for the minor was sought by the petitioners, who have no biological ties with the minor, the minor’s parents and the minor's grandparents. Given that doctors discovered the presence of amphetamine in the child’s urine immediately after birth, the District Court ordered a preliminary injunction, according to which the minor was placed in the care of a facility for children in need of immediate care, at the suggestion of the Office for the Social and Legal Protection of Children. The District Court then ordered institutional care and placed the minor in the care of the same institution. The petitioners submitted a proposal for the issuance of an interim injunction that would have placed the minor in their care and at the same time submitted a proposal for the commencement of adoption proceedings regarding the minor. The mother of the minor issued her consent for the adoption and the District Court issued a preliminary injunction placing the minor in the petitioners’ care on 15.12.2014. A few months later, the parents issued a declaration acknowledging the paternity of intervening party 5), who had not consented to the adoption, and the mother of the minor also subsequently retracted her consent. They then jointly submitted a proposal for the minor to be placed in their care. At the same time, intervening parties 2) and 3) also submitted a proposal for the minor to be placed in their care in their capacity as the minor’s grandparents. The District Court decided to place the minor in the foster care of the petitioners. Nevertheless, contact between the minor and the biological parents and grandparents continued on the basis of this decision. The contact with the grandparents gradually began to be extended on the basis of instructions from the District Court and as such the grandparents submitted a proposal for the minor to be placed in their foster care. The minor’s parents then proposed that the minor be placed in their care, but they both subsequently retracted their proposal. The District Court ruled on the petition with its disputed decision dated 17.6.2021, in which it placed the minor in the grandparent's foster care. The Municipal Court (the appellate court) subsequently confirmed the decision of the court of first instance in its disputed decision of 26.1.2022. Even though it had found a number of procedural and substantive errors in the disputed decision, it reached the conclusion that it was in the minor’s best interests not to quash the decision and therefore to leave the minor in the care of its grandparents. The petitioners stated in their constitutional complaint that the disputed decisions of the lower courts had breached their constitutionally guaranteed rights. They were of the opinion that the minor should have remained in their care and not that of the biological family.

The Constitutional Court has found that the petitioners’ constitutionally guaranteed rights to a fair trial and to protection against intervention in their privacy and family life have been breached. It has also found breaches in the procedural rights of the minor. The District Court committed a number of errors that have already been described by the Municipal Court. It proceeded arbitrarily in that it failed to respect the cogent norms of substantive and procedural civil law. It reached its decision in the foster care proceedings in line with the provisions of section 969 of the Civil Code, despite the fact that it was unable to commence any such proceedings itself or at the instigation of the minor’s grandparents. It instructed the petitioners to gradually extend the child’s contact with the grandparents. It prolonged the court proceedings for so long so that the minor could become used to the different environment. This subsequently occurred and the District Court then used this fact to justify its decision. However, courts cannot justify their decisions with the fact that they basically could not have decided otherwise based on their prior actions in the proceedings. The Municipal Court concluded that, despite all the errors and the unlawful removal of the minor from the care of the petitioners and the transfer of the minor to the grandparents, such significant changes had occurred within the life of the minor in the interim so as to mean that any further change in the care for the minor would not be in its best interests.

The minor is now in the care of its biological family. The Constitutional Court finds that the interests of the child to be left in the care of the individuals, with whom it has spent a longer period, have prevailed, even at the expense of the rights of those, from whose care the child has been “removed” unlawfully. In other words, it is in the child’s best interests for it to remain in the care of its grandparents, which it had become accustomed to during the long court proceedings, despite this being at the expense of the petitioners’ rights in the given situation. The Constitutional Court has also appealed to the minor’s grandparents to further enable further contact between the child and the petitioners in the child’s best interests and to support this for as long as the minor is interested in it continuing. Given the highly specific circumstances of the case, it would also be advisable for a judicial decision to be issued in relation to the minor’s contact with the petitioners. The minor has established very strong emotional ties with both its grandparents and the petitioners as a consequence of the District Court’s approach and they all constitute important figures in the minor’s life. It is therefore desirable for the contact with these individuals of importance to the minor to be legally secured within the statement of a judicial ruling.