A parent may win a case and still lose the relationship with his or her child. This is one of the most troubling paradoxes of family law. A final judgment may establish a clear right to maintain personal relations with a child, yet the parent may remain unable to exercise that right for months or even years. The judgment exists; the right exists; enforcement proceedings exist. But the relationship itself continues to disappear.
The problem is particularly acute where the parent with whom the child lives repeatedly obstructs contact and the child eventually begins to reject the other parent. What appears at first to be a dispute between two adults can, with the passage of time, become a profound issue concerning the child’s emotional development and the State’s obligation to protect family life.
The Romanian Code of Civil Procedure provides a specific mechanism for enforcing judgments concerning minors. The procedure allows the involvement of bailiffs, child protection authorities and psychologists and provides for penalties where the parent fails to comply. Yet the practical difficulty remains, for example, when the resident parent invokes the child’s refusal to see the other parent or when there is a case of parental alienation. The law understandably prevents the use of coercion against the child, but this safeguard may become ineffective if the child’s refusal is itself the consequence of prolonged influence or parental alienation.
The Romanian legislator has taken important steps in recent years. Parental alienation has been expressly recognized in Law no. 272/2004, including as a form of psychological violence, while the legislation has strengthened the available measures and sanctions. These changes are significant. Nevertheless, the central difficulty remains: a legal remedy which becomes effective only after a lengthy period may come too late for the child and for the relationship the law intended to protect.
This concern is not new before the European Court of Human Rights. In Ignaccolo-Zenide v. Romania, the Court found a violation of Article 8 and held that the national authorities had failed to take adequate and effective measures to enforce the applicant’s right to family life. The Court expressly recognised that Article 8 imposes positive obligations on States and that authorities must act to facilitate the reunion of parents and children. It also made clear that the existence of unlawful behaviour by the resident parent does not relieve the State of its responsibility to provide effective means of enforcement.
The same principles appear in Pascal v. Romania, where the Court stressed that the mutual enjoyment by parent and child of each other’s company is a fundamental element of family life. The State’s obligation is not one of guaranteeing a particular result, but of taking the measures reasonably required to preserve or, where necessary, rebuild the family relationship. Importantly, the Court has repeatedly emphasized the need for particular diligence because the passage of time can have irreversible consequences.
The lesson is therefore not that the State must forcibly impose a relationship between a parent and child. That would be contrary to the child’s best interests. The real obligation is more demanding: the State must act early enough, effectively enough and consistently enough to prevent a parent-child relationship from being destroyed by the very passage of time.
This is where the Romanian system continues to face a serious challenge. The growing use of protective orders may offer an important remedy in appropriate cases, but a remedy applied only after a considerable period of conflict risks addressing the consequences rather than the cause. By the time the authorities intervene decisively, the child may already have spent years without a meaningful relationship with one parent.
A parent who has exhausted enforcement proceedings, requested penalties, filed criminal complaints, addressed the child protection authorities and sought assistance from public institutions is no longer simply asking the State to enforce a judgment.
That parent is asking the State to preserve a relationship with his or her child before it becomes impossible to repair.
This is why the final question is not whether Romania has adopted enough legislation. It is whether its institutions can make that legislation work within the time that childhood allows.
Every missed weekend, every missed holiday and every birthday spent apart becomes part of a child’s history. Unlike financial debt, those losses cannot be fully compensated later.
When a parent has a final judgment recognizing the right to see his or her child, can the Romanian State make that right effective before time destroys the relationship that the judgment was meant to protect?
If, in too many cases, the answer remains “no”, the problem is no longer merely one of family conflict or unsuccessful enforcement. It becomes a question of the effectiveness of the rule of law itself — and, considering Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, potentially a question of the State’s international responsibility.
