FIRST SECTION
CASE OF L.B. v. SLOVAKIA
(Application no. 5541/22)
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
STRASBOURG
12 September 2024
 
 
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of L.B. v. Slovakia,
The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Gilberto Felici, President,
 Alena Poláčková,
 Raffaele Sabato, judges,
and Liv Tigerstedt, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 5541/22) against the Slovak Republic lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 19 January 2022 by a Slovak national, L.B. (“the applicant”), who was born in 1980, lives in Nové Mesto nad Váhom and was represented by Mr S. Cibulka, a lawyer practising in Trenčín;
the decision to give notice of the application to the Slovak Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms Miroslava Bálintová, from the Ministry of Justice;
the decision not to have the applicant’s name disclosed;
the decision to give priority to the application (Rule 41 of the Rules of Court);
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated in private on 9 July 2024,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The case concerns the applicant’s rights to contact with his minor son, the enforcement of interim orders, and the length of the proceedings. The applicant relied on Articles 6 and 8 of the Convention. 2. On 1 February 2019 the mother of the applicant’s son initiated proceedings in the Nové Mesto nad Váhom District Court seeking arrangements for the exercise of parental rights and obligations in respect of their child (“the custody proceedings”). 3. It appears that, on the basis of interim orders made by the court in March and July 2019, the applicant was able to have regular contact with his son (born in 2013) and that until the end of September 2019 that contact went smoothly. 4. On 6 March 2020 the court made an interim order for regular contact between the applicant and his son for the period from March to June 2020 at the premises of the Centre for children and family (“the Centre”) in Nové Mesto nad Váhom. However, as the Centre was closed until the end of May 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the first meeting did not take place until 4 June 2020. 5. On 3 June 2020 the Trenčín Regional Court varied the order so that contact was to take place on Thursdays from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the premises of the Centre. 6. On 6 October 2020 the District Court, having established on 25 August 2020 that the scheduled contact had not taken place, ordered enforcement of the interim order of 6 March 2020. 7. On 20 October 2020 the Constitutional Court (I. ÚS 471/2020) dismissed as manifestly ill-founded the applicant’s constitutional complaint challenging the protracted conduct of the District Court. 8. On 12 January 2021 the court ordered the parents, grandparents and child to attend regular social counselling sessions at the Centre and ordered the Centre to inform the court of each session. 9. The contact between the applicant and his son scheduled for June, July and August 2021 did not take place. In its final report of 31 August 2021, the Centre observed that it had not been possible to re-establish contact between the applicant and his son. It recommended a further variation of the order so that it could work with the child on an individual basis, without the presence of his mother. 10. On 22 August 2021 the District Court discontinued the enforcement of the interim order of 6 March 2020 because it had become unenforceable as a result of the interim order of 12 January 2021. 11. On 22 September 2021 the court invited the mother of the child to comply with the interim order of 12 January 2021 voluntarily. 12. At a hearing of 26 October 2021, the District Court again ordered the parents, grandparents and child to attend regular social counselling sessions at the Centre and ordered the Centre to inform it of each session; the child should have attended those sessions without the presence of his mother. 13. On 11 November 2021 the Constitutional Court (II. ÚS 543/2021) declared inadmissible the applicant’s second constitutional complaint in which he complained, in particular, that his right to family life was violated by the fact that he was prevented from having contact with his minor son as a result of the court’s inaction. 14. The Centre reported to the District Court that the contact scheduled for December 2021 and January and February 2022 had not taken place: the mother and child had failed to attend. 15. In a judgment of 10 February 2022, the District Court ordered that the child should reside with the mother and ordered the applicant to pay monthly maintenance of fifty euros (EUR). The court also ordered both parents and the child to undergo three months of psychological counselling at the Centre; on completion of the therapy, the applicant would be allowed to have contact with the child every other weekend from 3.30 p.m. on Friday to 6 p.m. on Sunday. It ordered the mother to prepare the child and take him to the meeting place at the time fixed. 16. On 16 February 2022 the District Court ordered the child’s mother, on penalty of a fine if she did not, to ensure that the child attended regular social counselling sessions at the Centre at a specified time, under the interim order of 26 October 2021 (see paragraph 11 above). On 13 April 2022 the court fined the child’s mother EUR 100 for having failed to comply with the interim order. 17. On 24 March 2022 the applicant, having been charged in March 2019, was found guilty of the offence of dangerous stalking of the child’s mother and obstructing the execution of a court order and was given a six-month suspended sentence. 18. The Centre reported that the mother had missed most of the social counselling sessions between June and October 2022 and that the sporadic meetings she had attended with the child had been short and difficult. 19. On 2 August 2022 the child’s mother was charged with obstructing the execution of a decision by a public authority. 20. On 20 October 2022 the Regional Court upheld the interim order issued by the District Court on 26 October 2021 (see paragraph 12 above). 21. On 9 November 2022 the Regional Court upheld the District Court judgment as regards the obligation of the parents and the child to undergo professional social counselling. With regard to the applicant’s contact rights, it ruled that after completing the course of therapy the applicant would be entitled to contact with his son every second Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. for the first two months and then every second week from 9 a.m. on Saturday to 5 p.m. on Sunday. 22. On 5 February 2023 the child’s mother appealed on points of law against the Regional Court’s judgment, which apparently remains undecided before the Supreme Court. 23. The applicant complained under Article 8 of the Convention that, as a result of the slow and inefficient decision-making of the courts, he had been unsuccessful in his efforts to obtain regular contact with his minor son. He also complained that the custody proceedings had been in breach of the reasonable-time requirement set out in Article 6 of the Convention.

Outcome for Article 8: violation