Portuguese authorities “behaved in the most abject and disgusting way” – lawyer
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ordered the Portuguese state to pay €20,000 to a father and his underage son, considering that their rights were violated when the child was returned to his mother in 2018.
The ECHR judgement, to which Lusa news agency has had access today, says that Portuguese authorities and justice system failed to respect the rights of the child, who was 7 years old at the time, failed to listen to the father and investigate the origin of the bruises the child had and the alleged mistreatment committed by the mother, who lived in France, and to whom the child was returned by order of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP).
The parents lived in France and had shared custody of the child. In December 2017, after deciding to return to Portugal, the father filed an action with Matosinhos Family and Children’s Court to regulate parental responsibilities. He filed a complaint against the mother for alleged mistreatment after noticing an injury to the child (who was with him in Portugal at the time).
The mother filed a complaint with the French authorities for kidnapping, which is why the man was arrested in February 2018 in Matosinhos, in the district of Porto, in fulfilment of a European arrest warrant.
On that day, father and son were taken to a PSP police station. At the same time, the public prosecutor at the Matosinhos Family and Minors Court decided to return the child to his mother without hearing the father or the child, and without ordering an investigation into the alleged mistreatment.
“The mere fact that the police authorities removed the child from school at 09:00 and simultaneously detained his father, keeping them in a police station for more than three hours, when the child was taken to the Public Prosecutor’s Office before being handed over to his mother at 17:00, seems to be enough to state that the child was not treated with care and sensitivity or with special attention to his situation and well-being and with full respect for his psychological integrity,” said the ECHR.
For the court, Portuguese authorities did not deal with the request to return the child to his mother under the Hague Convention effectively and expeditiously, but instead limited themselves to executing the European arrest warrant and automatically returning the child to his mother.
According to the European court, the authorities gave “greater weight to the mutual recognition of judicial decisions and the interests of the mother, ignoring other factors, in particular and above all, any assessment of the best interests of the child and, secondly, the rights of the second applicant as a father”.
The court recalls that Article 8 of the Convention requires national authorities to strike a fair balance between the interests of the child and those of the parents and that, in the balancing process, special importance must be given to the best interests of the child, which, depending on their nature and gravity, may take precedence over those of the parents.
Speaking to the Lusa news agency today, the lawyer for the child’s father criticised the actions of the Public Prosecutor’s Office throughout this process.
“The Portuguese authorities, namely the Matosinhos Public Prosecutor’s Office, behaved in the most abject and disgusting way a 72-year-old lawyer with almost 50 years in the legal profession has ever seen. There are so many mistakes and mistreatment of the applicants and victims by the Public Prosecutor’s Office that there are indications of either a great deal of ignorance or of the provision of favours to a former employee of the former prime minister of Portugal, António Costa,” said Jorge Alves.
According to the lawyer, the child’s mother had been a maid at the home of the current president of the European Council before going to France.
“If the public prosecutors are incompetent, they should have been expelled. If they did favours, they should be in jail. There has never been any news of the disciplinary proceedings that the plaintiff-father initiated. He believes that the offenders were promoted. Only in Portugal, a third world country of justice,” said Jorge Alves.
LUSA
