Plan for Union rules to govern child custody

Date: 14/09/00

By John Shelley

COURT orders granting divorced parents the right to visit their children would be valid across the EU under a proposal tabled by the French presidency.Under the plan, rules would be introduced allowing judgements on access to children delivered in one member state to apply in all 15.The French paper is the latest in a series of moves to harmonise divorce and separation laws across the Union, and follows agreement between ministers in May on rules to make divorces granted in one country valid in all 15 member states.

The new legislation is designed to ensure that the children of broken marriages can still visit or be visited by both parents, even if they are not from the same EU member state. "Children of separated couples will not be able to move more freely within the Union until judgements relating to them are able to move more freely," argues the French paper.

Under the proposals, rulings giving a parent the right to visit a child under the age of 16 in one country would automatically apply in any other member state, including judgements allowing a parent to take the child away from home to, for example, stay with them for a limited period.

Measures designed to prevent parents from taking a child abroad and then applying for custody in their own country would make it impossible for a court in one member state to overturn the ruling made by another unless a parent could prove that there would otherwise be a "serious, direct risk to the child's health".

Similarly, if the child was not returned at the end of a visiting period, the parent with custody could apply to a court in their own country and the authorities in the state where the child was staying would be obliged to return him or her without the second parent being given a right to challenge the order.

Court orders granting divorced parents the right to visit their children would be valid across the EU under a proposal tabled by the French Presidency.