The District Court of Piaseczno (Masovian Voivodeship) issued a ruling to forcibly remove 8-year-old Ines from her adoptive family and place her in the care of her father “in order to return the child to Belgium”. Three years earlier, the Supreme Court had rejected the father’s request to hand over the girl.
The legal battle over Ines’ parental rights began in 2017, when her mother – after separating from her father – took her from Belgium to Poland. The woman died unexpectedly in 2019.
Ines currently attends school in Poland. She is cared for by her aunt and uncle, who in 2022 – after three years of effort – were established as her foster family. However, proceedings are underway to grant them permanent custody of the 8-year-old child. The biological father has the right to see her once every two weeks.
On 20 August 2024, the Piaseczno District Court issued a decision to forcibly remove Ines from her adoptive family and place her in the care of her father “in order to return the child to Belgium”. This is the result of another Belgian ruling. The local court did not recognise the decision of the Polish Supreme Court and again ordered that the girl be “returned” to her biological father.
The representative of the 8-year-old’s adoptive family, Marta Trzęsimiech-Kocur, received the court’s decision on Friday (September 6). She told PAP that on the same day she filed a request to suspend the execution of the Belgian sentence.
The Piaseczno court issued a default judgment, did not hear the child and did not take cognizance of his situation. Ines has not even been heard by a court in Warsaw, where a case regarding the establishment of a permanent foster family is pending. He is already 8 years old. Someone still has to take into account her opinion about where and with whom she wants to live.
– said the patron.
In his opinion, “such a sudden, unexpected and forced removal of a child from a loving family is brutal and should never happen.”
Inês’ return to Poland
Inês was born in Poland in 2016. Shortly after she was born, her mother took her to Belgium, where her partner and the girl’s father lived. A year later, the couple separated and the mother returned to Poland with her daughter.
In 2019, a Belgian court granted sole parental custody to the father. The following day, the girl’s mother passed away and her grandmother took over her care. The Belgians believed she was hiding a child, so they issued a European arrest warrant for her, which was dismissed in Poland.
A Belgian court issued an order for the immediate return of the child to the country in 2017. On this basis, the Polish court decided to extradite the girl, which became final in 2019. The implementation of this decision was suspended in 2020 by the Constitutional Court. Finally, in 2021, the Supreme Court accepted the extraordinary appeal of the then Prosecutor General Zbigniew Ziobro and overturned the decision in this case.
We sent questions on this matter to the Piaseczno District Court. We have not received a response by the time of publication.
tkwl/PAP
