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in a situation in which the maintenance creditor, who has changed his habitual residence, has brought before the courts of the State of his new habitual residence a maintenance claim against the debtor in respect of a period in the past during which the creditor resided in another Member State, the law of the forum, which is also the law of the State of the creditor’s new habitual residence, can apply provided the courts of the Member State of the forum had jurisdiction to adjudicate on the disputes concerning those parties as to the maintenance relating to that period. As is apparent from Article 4(2) of the Hague Protocol, that provision, which makes it possible to apply the law of the forum instead of the law of the State of the maintenance creditor’s habitual residence, takes effect only if those laws are different from one another. It follows that in a situation such as that at issue in the main proceedings, in which the law of the forum (in the present case Austrian law) does not coincide with the law of the State of the creditor’s habitual residence in respect of the period for which the creditor is claiming maintenance (German law in this instance), Article 4(2) of the Hague Protocol may have practical effect. However, it is also necessary that the law of the forum, as referred to in that provision, can be applied regarding a maintenance claim relating to a period in the past. In this connection, it should be noted that it is not possible to establish beyond doubt the scope of Article 4(2) of the Hague Protocol merely from the wording of that provision. It must be interpreted taking account of the system of connecting rules established by the Hague Protocol and the objective of that Protocol. As regards the system of connecting rules established by the Hague Protocol, it must be observed that Article 4(2) thereof contains a special rule to the advantage of certain creditors which completes the general rule in Article 3 thereof. Moreover, as is apparent inter alia from the Bonomi report and the objectives pursued by the Commission, which participated actively in the negotiations leading to the adoption of the Hague Protocol (see the Proposal for a Council Regulation on jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition and enforcement of decisions and cooperation in matters relating to maintenance obligations [COM (2005) 649]), that system seeks to guarantee the predictability of the applicable law by ensuring that the law designated is not devoid of a sufficient connection to the family situation at issue. Given the system of connecting rules laid down in the Hague Protocol and that protocol’s objective of predictability, as described in paragraph 41 above, it must be held that, if the application of the law of the forum provided for in the alternative in Article 4(2) of the Hague Protocol resulted merely from the choice by the creditor of his new habitual residence without there being any connection between that law and the family situation of the creditor and the debtor concerned by the maintenance obligation as it was at the time to which that obligation relates, the application of that law would not be consistent with either that system or that objective.