The High Court refused an application to return a child to Slovakia, finding that the father had acquiesced in the child remaining in Ireland. The court stressed that its decision concerned only the summary return application and did not determine the merits of custody.
The father and mother, who were not married, had lived with the child in Slovakia until January 2011. The mother left for Ireland with the child that month, then returned to Slovakia with the child in May. On 22 May 2011, she left again for Ireland, where she continued to live with the child. The father had access to the child during the May visit.
The father began Slovak proceedings in March 2011 seeking alternate care. At a hearing on 13 September, his lawyer withdrew the petition, and the Slovak District Court discontinued the proceedings. The father later said he had authorised the withdrawal because an agreement about care and visitation might be reached. The mother disputed that account. The High Court rejected the father’s explanation, relying on the contemporaneous court record and noting that he had not attended the Slovak hearing and there was no evidence from his lawyer.
The return proceedings in Ireland began on 27 February 2012. The judge found both removals wrongful under the Hague Convention: the child remained habitually resident in Slovakia, the father held and was exercising custody rights, and the removals breached those rights. Because the Irish proceedings began within a year of the May removal, the court would ordinarily have been required to order return unless an exception applied.
The judge found the father knew in September that the child was in Ireland and that he could seek her return. Objectively, withdrawing his request for alternate care—which required the child to live in Slovakia—showed acceptance of the child’s living arrangements with her mother in Ireland. The court therefore found acquiescence under Article 13(a), giving it discretion over whether to order return.
Taking account of the time elapsed and the child’s age, the judge declined to order return. By June 2012, the child had lived more than half her life in Ireland, and the judge considered that changing her arrangements should follow a full welfare assessment in a custody hearing. The court’s decision was not a determination of custody merits. It directed that the judgment and related case materials be transmitted to the relevant Slovak court and Central Authority. The Slovak courts retained jurisdiction to decide any continuing custody dispute; a later return judgment from a court with jurisdiction under the EU Regulation could be enforceable in Ireland.