Communicated on 19 February 2021
Published on 8 March 2021
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 20503/20
Georgios GIANNAKOPOULOS
against Greece
lodged on 14 April 2020
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the rejection of the applicant’s application to be granted permanent custody of his children. The applicant complains that the domestic courts misinterpreted the relevant provisions and erroneously considered that his children had their habitual residence in Germany and subsequently rejected his application. In particular, the domestic courts disregarded a) the fact that their children had been taken to Germany in violation of his contact rights as determined by decision no. 590/2013 of the Rhodes one-member Court of First Instance and that the mother had been granted custody on the basis of her assurances that she would stay in Greece; b) decision no. 26/2015 of the Rhodes one-member Court of First Instance granting him temporarily the custody of his children; c) the decisions of the German courts which rejected the mother’s application not to recognise the above-mentioned decision no. 26/2015 and suspended the proceedings until the Greek courts clarify their jurisdiction; d) the fact that his children had lived a year only in Germany and their presence could not be considered habitual residence.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Having regard to the circumstances of the case, decision no. 26/2015 of the Rhodes one-member First Instance Court that granted temporary custody of his children to the applicant, the relevant decisions of the German courts and the subsequent decisions of the Greek courts rejecting the applicant’s application for lack of jurisdiction, has there been a violation of the applicant’s right to family life as protected by Article 8 of the Convention due to the refusal of the domestic authorities to examine his request for being granted permanent custody of his children?
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