Invisible dog Lidové noviny EUROPE: Absurd verdict<

Five reasons why the ECtHR decision in the Eva Michaláková case is absurd

In January 2021, the District Court in Hodonín entrusted Eva Michaláková's sons with sole custody. He did this knowing all the details of the case. How is it possible that the Strasbourg one came to a different conclusion?

Last week, after an incredible 4 years, the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (ECtHR) was finally handed down regarding the case of the Czech Eva Michaláková and her two sons, who were taken ten years ago by the Norwegian social service Barnevernet (BV). The court sided with Norway.

However, there is no scandalous revelation of new details or hidden juicy facts. The judgment confirmed what the members of the Petition Committee in her support, including me, have been saying all along - that no criminal proceedings were ever initiated against Ms. Michaláková, let alone that she received even a fine, she can continue to teach at school and kindergarten and raise her current boyfriend's daughter .

You have improved in many ways, we have no evidence against you, but it's still just our feeling

She was only guilty of not protecting the children sufficiently from their father (whom she divorced immediately on the recommendation of Barnevernet) and after more than three years, when she had absolutely no recourse to justice in Norway, she publicized the case out of desperation. Back then, it couldn't actually be worse. Her sons were already living separated in two different families, she practically did not see them, gifts and letters were returned unopened.

She had no hope, let alone funds, to defend herself against the fabrications and lies based only on the workers' impressions, which would be easily proven if only someone could check them. But Barnevernet is not answerable to anyone, it has practically unlimited power over families. Meanwhile, time was running.

As mentioned in the introduction, the district court in Hodonín, knowing all the details of the case, entrusted the sons to Michaláková's care. Formally, because they actually stay in Norway. The Norwegians usurp the right to decide on Czech citizens only because they are currently on their territory and have refused to even assess whether any of the relatives in the Czech Republic could take care of the children.

The Strasbourg court decided otherwise. Without any critical thinking and properly dealing with all of Michalák's arguments, he simply accepted Norway's claims. A country for which dozens of similar cases are already an international shame and therefore have a reason to lie and try to defend the indefensible. The resulting verdict seems downright absurd, and below I offer five reasons why.

1) Unverified adoption of Barnevernet lies like from the movie Hunt

“The Norwegian Barnevernet uses the services of private individuals. And they are often driven by economic interests," was one of the headlines of the Petitions Committee's press release, which highlighted a 100-page audit commissioned directly by the Norwegian government, which confirmed massive corruption in their child protection system. In short: it has been very profitable to take children from families and provide them with foster care. Therefore, no one will tell me that Barnevernet officials have no reason to lie in their reports, especially if they are trying to cover up their own mistakes, incompetence or desire for public money.

However, Strasbourg did not take this into account at all, and there was absolutely no verification of the Norwegian side's claims. In the judgment, we only read contradictory sentences that there must have been very serious neglect, abuse and I don't know what else in the family - only there is absolutely no evidence for this and these very serious offenses were never even handed over to the police for investigation.

One untrustworthy testimony of a foster mother appeared there, it was protolysed and repeated for ten years, probably so that a lie could become the truth. In this the ECtHR disappointed me greatly, in other judgments it reviewed the procedures much more thoroughly, but here they also violated their own rules of independent and as fast as possible investigation.

2) Testimony of a child mediated by a Barnevernet employee after x years without parents

Another absurdity is joining the argument that a roughly ten-year-old child, who has not seen his mother for several years and is undergoing treatment for psychological problems, can be a "crown witness" and everyone must follow his will 100%. In addition, it is sufficient that only a BV employee records his indefinite notice.

I think it is not even necessary to recall the cases of various manipulated child fighters. Anyone who has directly or indirectly experienced divorce with friends is very clearly aware of how easily influenced children are. Often, it is enough for the custodial parent to make a sad remark towards the other parent, and there is enough material for a friendly expert.

It is interesting that the children who want to return to their parents are either not questioned by anyone, or their statements are completely ignored and are further burdened by the parents. It is somehow the children's duty to thrive with foster parents and to like it there. I even encountered that it was a sign of pathological upbringing in the family if they missed!

3) Media coverage, when Barnevernet advocates harmed children the most

When BV ran out of arguments about the mother's poor care, the teachers, who were not supposed to protect the children sufficiently from the allegedly violent father, began to argue with the media. Eva Michaláková and the Petition Committee did not go into any details. Rather, those who took the side of Norway and "in the interest of the children" published allegedly fundamentally disgusting photos proving terrible conditions in the family.

This should then have been read by the foster parents, who were stressed (why should we be interested, when the principle of foster care is TEMPORARY care of children so that they can return to the biological family?) and then also the older son, who should have benefited from this trauma. That's why they didn't provide him with compulsory Czech courses at all - what if he still learned to understand it!

4) The division of brothers and the impossibility of even written communication were not addressed

The fourth reason why the sentence seems absurd to me is the complete failure to address the fact that the brothers were separated and the mother cannot even write to them. Not even a dying grandfather could write to them. They explained this and the missing obligation to teach Czech in an unacceptably comical way, but they did not completely ignore the fact that this is happening there. Overall, I don't believe that passing on the "I'm proud of you and I hope you're doing well" message that their grandfather wrote to them could have caused any more trauma than knowing that he probably won't even remember them. The boys obviously liked him.

5) A judgment that will come "strange" to Norwegians and to the director of UMPOD Captain

Not only Norwegian journalist Asle Hansen, who has been writing about Barnevernet cases for a long time, finds the sentence in the case of Eva Michaláková strange. In the last three years, the Norwegians have already lost 14 parental complaints, misconduct was not established in 4, another 10 were marked as inadmissible (the court did not comment on them at all) and another 24 very similar ones are still awaiting a decision in the "communicated" status ( here in AJ analysis based on HUDOC court database as of August 2021). Practically all of them deal with the fact that Barnevernet patronizes foster parents and, with absurd excuses, limits the parents' contact with the children to a minimum when a forced adoption occurs. This was also a threat in the case of the Michalák boys, but managed to ward it off.

I prefer not to speculate further as to why the judgment is as unbalanced as it is. In any case, even the director of the Institute for the International Protection of Children (UMPOD) Zdeněk Kapitán stood up for Michaláková and said that the Norwegians should have returned the children.

The Grand Senate? Or publish the Czech judgment?

Now what next? That must be decided by Mrs. Michaláková's lawyers. An appeal to the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR is offered, which is the path chosen, for example, by the Norwegian mother Trude Strand Lobben. Her son was "preventively" taken away shortly after birth. Barnevernet did not explain here how a child can still be at risk and require special care even after years, when he is all the time only with foster parents, where he was supposed to do so well that they immediately adopted him by force. At the same time, the mother took care of another, later born child without any problems.

The first judgment did not establish a violation of the right to family life, the Grand Chamber already did, and the case became a precedent for others. But such a path would with a high probability take another two to three years of waiting, when it would still be necessary to open the case again in Norway. Both of Michalák's boys will be adults in the meantime.

Or it is also possible to go the route of publishing at least the Czech judgment and insist that the Norwegians observe it as they should. The boys still have Czech citizenship, and with the new government I have hope that it won't just be a piece of paper. With the ECtHR's ruling, the reasons why this was not used more have already disappeared.

Blood is not water

Mrs. Michaláková is not concerned with the return of her sons to her care. He is well aware that ten years in other families have changed them profoundly. But she would like to have the opportunity to see them again at least occasionally and gradually show them that she is not a dangerous monster, but a normal mother, a teacher who likes them and the whole extended family.

Maybe some mistakes were made in the past, but only if they can talk to each other again, they can explain everything. And I continue to fight for it now, because I still believe that blood is not water, and for the future life of the boys, it will be fundamentally important that there is mutual reconciliation.

Taken from the blog with the author's permission

The author is an MEP for the KDU-ČSL, vice-chairman of the Committee for Employment and Social Affairs and a member of the Committee for Budgetary Control of the European Parliament