International Child Abduction (Hague Conv. 1980)

With reference to the issue of international child abduction, the Supreme Court, in its order no. 30123 dated
14.12.2017, upholding the legal arguments submitted by this Law Firm, rejected the claimant’s thesis that a minor of a few months is deprived of his or her habitual residence and confirmed that the concept of “habitual residence” must be interpreted under the best interest of the child, a principle accepted by both the European Court of Justice and the Court of Justice. In order to
identify a child’s habitual residence, it is therefore necessary to examine only the factual situation, irrespective of the life plans of adults, specifying that habitual residence is understood as “the place where the child has consolidated, consolidates or may consolidate a network of affections and relationships, such as to ensure a harmonious psychophysical development”. It is therefore necessary a “prognosis on the possibility that the new dwelling becomes the effective, stable and lasting centre of affections and interests of the child”.
With regard to the legal costs of the entire proceedings, including the stage before the Court for Minors, the Court agrees with the principle according which if there is a solution to a conflict, then the Court must implicitly recognise a loss, subject to the rules laid down in Articles 91 et seq. Italian Procedural Code. In the present case, there is a compensation hypothesis, given the novelty “of the complex questions examined, which have also revealed some contrasts in previous jurisprudential cases, especially supranational ones”.