Resolution CM/ResDH(2012)21[1]
Execution of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights
Macready against Czech Republic
The Committee of Ministers, under the terms of Article 46, paragraph 2, of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which provides that the Committee supervises the execution of final judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter “the Convention” and “the Court”)[2],
Having regard to the judgment transmitted by the Court to the Committee once it became final;
Case name (App. No.)
Judgment of
Final on
Macready (4824/06)
22/04/2010
04/10/2010
Recalling that a finding of violations by the Court requires, over and above the payment of just satisfaction awarded in the judgments, the adoption by the respondent State, where appropriate, of individual measures to put an end to the violations and as far as possible to remedy their consequences for the applicant and general measures to prevent new, similar violations;
Having invited the authorities of the respondent State to provide an action plan concerning the measures proposed to execute the judgment;
Having, in accordance with the Committee’s Rules for the application of Article 46, paragraph 2, of the Convention, examined the action report provided by the government (see action report, document DH‑DD(2011)1021E);
Having noted that the respondent State paid the applicant the just satisfaction, as provided in the judgment;
DECLARES, that it has exercised its functions under Article 46, paragraph 2, of the Convention in this case and
DECIDES to close the examination thereof.
Report of the Government of the Czech Republic on the execution of the judgment
in cases nos. 4824/06 and 15512/08 – Macready v. the Czech Republic
In its judgment of 22 April 2010 the European Court of Human Rights found a violation of the applicant’s right to respect for his family life, guaranteed by Article 8 of the Convention, in connection with the proceedings relating to the return of the applicant’s child according to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (hereinafter “the Hague Convention”) and the exercise of the applicant’s visiting rights. The judgment became final on 4 October 2010 according to Article 44 § 2 (c) of the Convention. The present report is intended to inform the Committee of Ministers of the individual and general measures of execution of the judgment.
I. INDIVIDUAL MEASURES
In view of the Government, the wrong complained of by the applicant, i.e. both the unreasonable length of the proceedings relating to the return of the applicant’s child according to the Hague Convention and the failure of the courts to ensure the applicant’s exercise of the interim measures arranging for his right to contact with his child have already been rectified as the proceedings in hand terminated with the Constitutional Court’s rejection of the applicant’s constitutional appeal on 27 September 2007 which was served to the applicant on 11 October 2007.
Therefore, the Government believe that no further individual measures to execute the Court’s judgment are necessary.
II. GENERAL MEASURES
The Government note that in its judgment the Court itself pointed out the existence of Act no. 295/2008 which entered into force on 1 October 2008 and which amended the Rules of Civil Procedure. In particular, the new Sections 193a-193e of the Rules of Civil Procedure provide with a separate legal scope for the proceedings relating to the international child abduction the purpose of which is to secure a concentrated course of the proceedings with respect to the limits set down by the Hague Convention (determination of a special tribunal for the proceedings in case; the possibility for the court to take suitable measures in order to se-cure conditions for a return of a child or to decide on interim arrangements of a complainant’s contact with his/her child; implementation of the statutory six-week time limit for delivering a decision on the merits). The Court further admitted that the Czech Republic had heard the Court’s criticism relating to the preventive remedy against an unreasonable length of proceedings under Act no. 6/2002, as the relevant provision had been amended.
In addition, the Government would like to stress that besides the above mentioned amendments a significant effort has been made in order to spread relevant information relating to the problematic issues of international parental disputes, on the one hand, among judges deciding relevant cases and among other competent state authorities (such as the authorities for social and legal protection of children and the Office for International Legal Protection of Children – OILPC ) and, on the other hand, also to the public at large. In particular, the amended Rules of Civil Procedure and, generally, the family issues have been a subject matter of a number of seminars held for judges, their assistants and senior court officers at the Judicial Academy of the Czech Republic. For example, a seminar for child care judges was held in Autumn 2008, a seminar for judges of district and regional courts on family law was held in January 2009, a seminar for judges of courts of the first instance was held in the matter of the Rules of Civil Procedure and their amendments in March 2009 and six seminars for senior court officers and bailiffs concerning the execution of decisions involving minor children took place in April 2009. The topic of the execution of the decisions of the foreign child care courts was discussed between judges and their assistants during a seminar in September 2009. In order to inform the public at large, there have been several leaflets published by the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs concerning both general information for the “international families in crisis” and particularly the issue of international abduction of children.
An important accent was also put on mediation in parental disputes. The role of an informal mediator in the international child abduction disputes is performed by the OILPC the task of which is to reach solutions that would have the least possible negative impacts on the family crisis caused by illegal international removals of children. So far, the OILPC’s effort, intensified in the field of mediation since 2009, has achieved success. According to the statistics available to the Government which relate to the success rate of the OILPC’s mediation activity in the international child abduction cases concerning the Czech Republic in 2009 and 2010, from the total number of 56 cases of international child abduction in 33 cases the mediation resulted in an agreement as a final solution of the case (9 cases) or a voluntary return of a child (12 cases) or a withdrawal of a motion for return of child filed with a tribunal (12 cases).
Concerning the preventive remedy against an unreasonable length of proceedings in the form of a motion for determination of a time limit for taking a procedural step according to Section 174a of Act no. 6/2002 on Courts and Judges, the Government note that the amendment which came into force on 1 July 2009 and which the Court mentioned in the judgment removed the contentious relation between the mentioned motion for the determination of a time limit for making a procedural act and the complaint filed with an authority responsible for the State’s administration of courts according to Section 164 of the act. The Government are of the opinion that the preventive remedy against an unreasonable length of proceedings now fully complies with the requirement of effectiveness set down by the Convention.
In conclusion, the Government believe that no further systematic measures to prevent analogous violations in future are required.
III. CONCLUSION
The Government of the Czech Republic submit this report and believe that they will be found to have implemented all obligations incumbent upon them in order to execute the Macready v. the Czech Republic judgment.
Prague, 16 September 2011.
Vít A. Schorm
Government Agent before the Court
signed electronically
[1] Adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 8 March 2012 at the 1136th Meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies.
[2] See also the Recommendations adopted by the Committee of Ministers in the context of the supervision of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights and in particular Recommendation Rec(2004)6 of the Committee of Ministers to member States on the improvement of domestic remedies.
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