The High Court has ordered the return to Hungary of two boys who were brought to Ireland by their mother, but stayed the order to allow an application for their relocation to Ireland to be made before the Hungarian courts. The court made no return order for their younger sister, C.
In a judgment delivered on 5 April 2022, Ms Justice Mary Rose Gearty found that the boys, identified as A and B, were habitually resident in Hungary before their removal in 2019. Their father had custody rights under Hungarian law and was exercising those rights, despite being in prison. The court therefore found that their removal was wrongful under the Hague Convention and EU rules.
The court reached a different conclusion for C. Her father was not named on her birth certificate, and his paternity was legally established only after DNA testing in 2021. The judge found he had no custody rights in respect of C at the time she was taken from Hungary. Her removal was not wrongful under the Convention, and no summary return order could be made for her.
The mother argued that the father had acquiesced in the move, that the children faced a grave risk if returned and that the boys objected to going back. She also relied on the children’s lives in Ireland and the delays in the proceedings. The judge found that acquiescence and grave risk had not been established. The return request was made within a year, so the Convention’s settled-child defence did not apply.
Court-appointed assessments found that both boys objected to returning to Hungary. The judge considered their views, giving greater weight to A’s objection because he was older and remembered living there. She concluded that the objections did not outweigh the Convention’s return objectives. The court noted that the boys had friends and a stable family life in Ireland, but this was a summary return case, not a full welfare hearing.
The judge considered the children’s interests as a sibling group and the prospect of further disruption from another move. She ordered the return of A and B but imposed a stay to permit an application to the Hungarian courts for the children’s relocation to Ireland. The court said it would hear the parties on the appropriate terms of the stay. The judgment does not set out those terms or determine the outcome of any relocation application.