Yesterday (20 June 2024), the Court of Justice, asked by the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main, (Oberlandesgericht Frankfurt am Main) to interpret Arts 10 and 11 of Regulation (EC) No 2201/2003, delivered its judgment on the case No C-35/23, Greislzel.
More precisely, the referring Court asked: (i) whether Art 10(b)(i) of Brussels IIa ceases to be applicable on the sole ground that a request was made to the central authority of a third country for proceedings to be commenced for the return of the child under the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention and that those proceedings have failed; (ii) to define the concept of a “request for return”; and (ii) whether the provisions of Brussels IIa applies where proceedings for the return of a child under the 1980 Hague Convention have commenced between a third country and a Member State on whose territory that child is present following a wrongful removal or retention.
In the decision, the Court of Justice stated that Art 10(b)(i) of Regulation No 2201/2003 must be interpreted as meaning that “that provision does not cease to be applicable on the sole ground that a request was made to the central authority of a third country for proceedings to be commenced for the return of a child under the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention, and that those proceedings have failed”, and that “the concept of ‘request for return’ within the meaning of that provision does not cover either an application for the return of the child to a State other than the Member State in which that child was habitually resident immediately before the wrongful removal or retention, or an application for custody of that child brought before the courts of that Member State”. With regards to Art 11(6) to (8) of Regulation No 2201/2003, the Court of Justice stated that it must be interpreted “as not applying when proceedings for the return of a child under the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention have commenced between a third country and a Member State on the territory of which that child is present following a wrongful removal or retention”.
On the sensitive topics addressed in the judgment, the readers of RDIPP may refer to:
Olivia Lopes Pegna, 2023, No 4, p. 832 ff.; Costanza Honorati, 2020, No 4, 796 ff.; Laura Carpaneto, 2018, No 4, 944 ff.; Costanza Honorati, 2017, No 2, 247 ff.; Costanza Honorati, 2015, No 2, 275 ff.; Laura Carpaneto, 2014, No 4, 931 ff.; Laura Carpaneto, 2011, No 2, 361 ff.; Sara Tonolo, 2011, No 1, 81 ff.; Gabriella Carella, 1994, No 4, 777 ff.
Moreover, see, in our Book Series:
Maria Caterina Baruffi, Book No 62; Stefania Bariatti, Ilaria Viarengo, Francesca C. Villata (eds.), Book No 81.