IV. ÚS 2582/24
The complainant is a Czech citizen. In June 2021 he married the secondary party, a citizen of both the Czech Republic and the Russian Federation. In November 2021 their daughter was born, and the complainant also adopted his wife's son. The children hold both Czech and Russian citizenship. The family lived in the Czech Republic during the pandemic; in 2022 they travelled to Dubai – according to the complainant it was a holiday, while the mother claimed it was a relocation of the family home. At the beginning of 2023 the complainant signed a document in which he stated that he had no objection to the children's residence in Dubai being registered under his wife, and authorised her to carry out the steps necessary to obtain residence visas for the children. He maintains that he agreed only to a temporary stay in Dubai, but the mother never returned to the Czech Republic with the children. The complainant claims he last saw them in Dubai in March 2023. He therefore initiated guardianship proceedings in which he sought custody of the children.
In July 2023 the complainant filed a criminal complaint against his wife on suspicion of committing the offence of child abduction and abduction of a person suffering from a mental disorder, or alternatively the offence of damaging another's rights. Neither the police nor the public prosecutor's office found a criminal offence. The complainant subsequently learned that the mother had moved with the children to Moscow, where she had initiated guardianship proceedings before a local court in May 2023. In May 2024 the complainant filed a second criminal complaint in relation to the relocation of the children to Russia without his consent, arguing that his consent to their stay in Dubai had been obtained through deceit. The public prosecutor's office, however, discontinued the complaint on the grounds that no offence had been committed and that the matter was a civil dispute: the complainant's wife holds both Czech and Russian citizenship, her family lives in Russia, she does not wish to reside in the Czech Republic, and her work involves travelling abroad for contracts. The complainant had been aware of these intentions before founding a family with her. The marriage has since broken down and divorce proceedings have been initiated. In May 2024 a Russian court in the guardianship proceedings determined that the children's residence was to be with their mother in Moscow and set arrangements for the complainant's contact with them. This decision was upheld on appeal in December 2024. The guardianship proceedings in the Czech Republic were discontinued due to lis pendens, since the Russian proceedings had begun earlier. The complainant's appeal was rejected by the Regional Court. His constitutional complaint against the Regional Court's ruling was dismissed as inadmissible (Resolution II. ÚS 1390/25), as he had not lodged an appeal on points of law and therefore had not exhausted all available remedies. The Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the appeal on points of law that was subsequently filed.
In his constitutional complaint, the complainant criticised the conduct of the public prosecutor's offices as unacceptable. He argued that they had failed to take into account the relocation of the children from Dubai to Russia without his consent and had limited themselves to referring to civil law as the means of resolving parental disputes. Nor had they addressed his claim that the mother's conduct fulfilled the elements of a criminal offence.
The Fourth Panel of the Constitutional Court (Justice Rapporteur Zdeněk Kühn) rejected the constitutional complaint.
The issue before the Constitutional Court was whether the public prosecutor's offices had violated the father's right to an effective investigation, arising from the right to respect for family life, by (allegedly) failing to adequately investigate the mother's relocation of the children to the Russian Federation. The Constitutional Court held that the constitutionally guaranteed right to an effective investigation can be successfully invoked through a constitutional complaint only in cases of truly serious interferences with the right to respect for private and family life protected under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The alleged abduction of the children by their mother does not constitute such an interference with the father's rights.
In the present case, the complainant is not entitled to the constitutionally guaranteed right to an effective investigation enforceable before the Constitutional Court. The relocation of the children described by the complainant does not reach the threshold of seriousness necessary to establish a constitutionally guaranteed positive obligation of the state to conduct an effective investigation, enforceable through a constitutional complaint. The mother's conduct does not attain the level of seriousness required by the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. This does not mean that the complainant cannot seek criminal prosecution for the minor offence of child abduction and abduction of a person suffering from a mental disorder under Section 200 of the Criminal Code, or for the minor offence of damaging another's rights under Section 181 of the Criminal Code. However, it is not for the Constitutional Court to “supervise” the legality of the procedures of bodies in charge of criminal proceedings in cases of such minor offences. While the Constitutional Court does not underestimate the harm caused to the complainant by the relocation of his children to Russia (significant obstacles to caring for them, maintaining contact, and exercising parental rights and responsibilities), nothing in the challenged procedures indicates any arbitrary or otherwise unacceptable conduct on the part of the bodies in charge of criminal proceedings.
The role of the Constitutional Court is to protect constitutionally guaranteed rights. The protection of statutory rights is provided by the public prosecutor's offices and, where appropriate, by the criminal courts. The Constitutional Court cannot usurp the constitutional authority of the prosecutor's offices to represent public prosecution in criminal proceedings. Nor is it a supreme overseer of the legality of criminal investigations, empowered to intervene at will in preliminary proceedings and substitute its own assessments for those of the competent authorities in all matters falling within criminal law.
The case as a whole appears primarily to be the result of long-term disputes between the parents regarding the family's place of residence, in this instance with an international dimension, as both public prosecutor's offices had already observed. Their conclusions are consistent with the approach that so-called parental child abductions are, first and foremost, a matter for civil law. Judicial practice likewise views parental abductions through this lens, traditionally adopting a reserved stance towards the criminal prosecution of parents.
Even in the present case, the relocation of the children must be addressed primarily through civil law instruments. Two parallel guardianship proceedings were conducted (in Russia and in the Czech Republic), and the disagreement between the parents regarding the children's residence and care was dealt with by the courts. The complainant's path before the Czech guardianship courts has not yet been entirely closed. Proceedings on the appeal on points of law in the guardianship case are still ongoing. Before the lower courts, the complainant's wife at least participated online and did not obstruct the proceedings.