Regarding the non-final judgment of the Municipal Civil Court in Zagreb and the decision on a temporary measure of the same court dated 28 November 2019, issued in the proceedings for the adoption of a decision on parental care between Mr. Milan Popović and Ms. Severina Kojić, which have been the subject of intensive media reporting, we hereby consider it necessary to express our concern about the radical move of the court reflected in the decision in question, which fundamentally changes the previous way of life of the minor child, and de facto significantly limits the mother's parental rights. It is stated that, according to the available information, the main reason for making such a decision is manifested in the parents' mutually impaired relations and disagreement in educational procedures, without any specific objection to the manner in which either parent exercises parental care, which, if proven to be true, represents a particularly worrying circumstance.
The above, especially considering that the manner of exercising parental care is also regulated by a temporary measure that is enforceable on the day of its adoption, which leads to the de facto separation of the child from the previous family environment and separation from the parents on the same day that the decision was communicated to the parties, with the absence of any preparation and adaptation of the child to the new life situation, which in itself shows all the shortcomings of the system and the lack of adaptation of the legal regulations that in this sense did not foresee any transitional period or support from experts in assimilating the child to the new circumstances and real life situations, and which omissions are most clearly manifested in the sphere of family relations. In this specific situation, the burden of preparing the child in one day for handover to the father fell on Mrs. Kojić, and if she had not done so - she would have suffered additional consequences. Additionally, despite opposing the court decision, we welcome Mrs. Kojić's decision to hand over the child to the father and thus protect him from trauma and stress in the event of forced enforcement.
At the same time, and regardless of the specific case, since it is not an isolated case, we would like to express our general concern about the decisive influence of the opinions of social welfare centers in court proceedings for the purpose of making a decision on parental care, whose proposals, according to our experience, are adopted by the courts in most cases without reservation, whereby the centers do not bear any responsibility for the opinions expressed, even when they are evidently contrary to the rights and interests of minor children. Moreover, they dismiss them under the pretext that they are not the ones judging, but the court, which on the other hand refers to the opinion of the center, which creates a vicious circle in which the consequences are borne exclusively by minor children.
Based on our many years of experience working with clients in similar life situations, we have witnessed continuous complaints about the shortcomings of professional assessments by individual social welfare centers, which in a significant number of cases, according to the clients, are based on the personal impression of the employees themselves, on the basis of which we can conclude that this is a frequent pattern of behavior, which we find extremely worrying. The above, especially taking into account that within the framework of the legal protection of children and families, there is no protocol for monitoring the execution of court decisions in family cases, through which the positive and negative effects of such court decisions could possibly be detected, which appears to be absolutely necessary.
We must also regretfully state that the role of special guardians, who were introduced into the system precisely with the aim of protecting the interests of children due to their overcapacity, has not resulted in the desired effects and in practice their position is purely formal in nature, as evidenced by the proceedings in question, in which, according to information available in the media, the special guardian did not see or speak to the minor child for a period of two years, whose interests she was supposed to represent in court proceedings. Consequently, the conclusion is that the fundamental rights of the child guaranteed by the Family Law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child to express an opinion in proceedings that directly concern his or her rights and interests have not been ensured.
In conclusion, we appeal to all participants in the system to seriously and promptly approach finding an adequate legal solution in order to ensure that court decisions in parental care proceedings are based on professional and independent assessments and that the preparation of such assessments is entrusted to sufficiently educated, sensitized and expert persons, as well as to regulate adequate mechanisms of accountability of persons who make such assessments and to establish a system for monitoring the execution of court decisions and their effects in practice, all with the aim of protecting the rights and interests of minor children.
Based on the experience of numerous of our clients during the many years of operation of our Legal and Psychosocial Counseling Center, we would like to emphasize that the case of Mrs. Kojić is only the reason for this announcement, with which we want to warn about the shortcomings and omissions of the system that are then reflected in the fates of children.
