On 15 October, Dr Agnė Limantė, Chief Researcher at the Law Institute of the Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences, participated in a meeting of the Human Rights Committee of the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania (Seimas), where she delivered a presentation entitled “Parental Child Abduction Cases in the Practice of Lithuanian Courts.” Dr Limantė was invited to this meeting, which focused on assessing the best interests of the child and ensuring appropriate assistance in cases of cross-border child abduction, for a reason: the researcher has conducted several studies in the field of private international family law and published academic works on child abduction.

In her presentation, Dr Limantė provided statistics on the number of children who are allegedly abducted to or from Lithuania each year, discussed the international legal instruments governing such situations, and elaborated on the grounds for non-return of a child that Lithuanian courts typically rely upon when adjudicating these cases.

According to Dr Limantė, most cases heard by Lithuanian courts concern children where at least one parent is Lithuanian and had at some point moved abroad to live and work. After the relationship between the parents breaks down, one of them often returns to Lithuania with the child without the other parent’s consent. The left-behind parent then has the right to apply to the court for the child’s return to his/her habitual residence. These situations are governed by two international legal instruments – the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction and the Brussels IIb Regulation.

The main principle under the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction is the prompt return of a wrongfully removed or retained child to their State of habitual residence. Under the Convention, the child should first be returned to the country of habitual residence, where the competent court will decide with which parent the child should reside. Thus, as Dr Limantė explained, a return proceeding can be seen as an ‘interim procedure’ – it concerns only the child’s return and not the determination of custody rights.

However, Article 13 of the Convention also provides grounds for refusing the child’s return, for example, when it is established that the other parent consented to the child’s removal, or when returning the child would expose him or her to physical or psychological harm, or otherwise place the child in an intolerable situation. An important principle duly followed by Lithuanian courts in such proceedings is the child’s right to be heard and to have his or her opinion taken into account.