International child abduction: judgment of the ECHR in the case of Michnea v. Romania

In the case of Michnea v. Romania (no. 10395/19, 7.7.2020) the Court ruled under Article 8 of the Convention (right to respect for family life) on the refusal by the domestic courts to order the return of a child to Italy, from where she had been taken to Romania by her mother without the father’s consent.

In so doing, the Court stressed the duty of the domestic courts to interpret and apply the relevant provisions of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction and of the Brussels II bis Regulation (Council Regulation (EC) No 2201/2003 of 27 November 2003) so as to secure the applicant’s rights guaranteed by Article 8 of the Convention (§ 45), which itself had to be interpreted in the light of those international instruments (§ 43).

In casu, the Court found that in interpreting and applying the Hague Convention and the Brussels II bis Regulation, the domestic courts had failed to secure the guarantees of Article 8. It considered in particular that they had not correctly applied the notion of “habitual residence of the child”, as interpreted by the CJEU in the case of Barbara Mercredi (C-497/10 PPU, 22.12.2010).

An interesting aspect of this judgment is certainly the fact that the scrutiny performed by the Court thus involves an indirect assessment of whether the domestic courts complied with relevant EU law provisions, thereby reinforcing the impact of EU law in domestic law.

See also, in the same vein, the judgment of the same date in the case of Voica v. Romania (no. 9256/19) in which the Court found no violation of Article 8 on account of the fact that the domestic courts had ordered the children’s return from Romania to France.