Can I take my son to Poland? My ex partner has sole guardianship.

Hello.
I'm Irish and my ex partner is Polish. We have a 9 year old together.
We have split up 4 years ago.since then i got married and he is in a relationship.
I have another child. My husband and I want to move back to Poland as he has land and property in Poland. My ex partner is refusing me to take my son with me.

My ex partner is a very good dad to our son and I don't want to hurt anyone . Especially my son. My ex partner has sole guardianship which I agreed to.

If I up and go and take my son with me will the Polish Courts order the return of my son back to Ireland?
Keeping in mind my son's grandparents and family live 80km from where I would be moving to . So it not like my ex partner would have difficulties seeing his son .

By "partner", I take it then neither of you were married to one another, am I right?
If so, I'm not certain to be honest whether or not either Britain or the EU (along with other European, but non-EU countries) acknowledge sole guardianship.

I know for a fact that here in the States, some of them (don't ask me which ones!) acknowledge sole guardianship, however only a handful regard "palimony" or child support aka alimony, for unmarried couples.

Best consult your local consulate(s) on that one:-) Only wish I might be more helpful though, merely saw your post and thought to give my two cents, for whatever they're worth!

If one parent has Court appointed sole guardianship, then the other parent cannot take the child anywhere without the sole-guardian's permission. If you do take the child, this would be kidnapping of a child (a very serious offence) and you would be in real trouble. The full force of the law would be against you and the child would be brought back to the sole-guardian.

The only way is to go to Court and get shared/joint custody. Evem then you cannot take the child out of the country.

@Irish, who awarded sole guardianship to your ex? A Polish court or an Irish court? Btw if your son presently lives with your ex then I don't think you should take him away from his dad.

I agree.
There was a reason why you thought your ex should take care of the kid. Now you not only think about changing that but also force him out of his environment with very limited contact with his sole guardian. I don't think it's in the child's best interest and I hope courts (if it came to that) would see it too.

Terri, alas, it doesn't work like this in Poland. I know of at least four different cases off the top of my head where the courts have played endless stupid games when dealing with a situation where a child should be immediately returned according to the Hague convention, including one situation where they simply kept demanding more and more reports until the father gave in. Another situation had the police claim that the child couldn't be found, despite the father presenting the courts with a detailed dossier of evidence showing exactly where the child was, where the child attended school, where the child attended private lessons, etc etc.

There's a good write-up here of a typical case: internationalfamilylawfirm.com/2018/01/polands-further-violation-of-obligation.html

As much as it pains me to say this, the odds of anything happening to the mother if she does kidnap the child are zero. Even if the child is taken by the police and returned to Ireland, the mother won't face any legal consequences here.

It may all depend on who your friends are.
I feel for the father of the child who (according to you) has no legal right over the child. It is, in my view, his own fault that he did not marry the woman. The other way round the problem is for the child to be adopted by the new husband, but I don't know whether the 'sole-guardianship' father would have to give his permission to that.

Yyy Terri- noone said whether the couple was married. And I don't see how that would help with parental abduction...

I think the OP indicates they weren't married by using the term partner rather than husband. In any case it would seem the child was born in Ireland because I looked up sole guardianship in Ireland and the term applies only to children of unmarried couples. The mother has it by default when the child is born, but can surrender it to the father which the OP appears to have done. It's not done by court order though, only through signing an agreement to that affect via a solicitor. The paper you sign is your only proof of guardianship as it's apparently not registered in any way by the courts. If there is a subsequent dispute between the parents, as in this case, it's resolved through mediation with some kind of mediating authority and then a Rule of Court is obtained to legalize it.

If the OP comes back to this thread I advise her to contact Treoir, the association for unmarried parents. They will advise her as to what's likely to happen if she takes her child without the father's permission. However, I think it's a terrible thing to do. If the child is happy living with his father, she should leave him where he is. The attitude that she can't seen any problem because her ex partner's grandparents only live 80km from the child's proposed new home and he could still see his child, seems very offhand and doesn't show much of an understanding of the bond between parent and child. Also uprooting a nine year old child from their school,their friends, their community etc.

Sorry guys just need to correct my own error. I am the sole guardian my son lives with me. I would never give him up. My ex partner has joined guardianship

I assumed Terri was talking about Delph's examples. If not then it's my bad, sorry.


That makes it less life shattering . I know in Poland such cases are ruled by court that decides whether it's ok for the parent to take the kid abroad. I doubt you'd face any problems from the legal system. I would be very careful though- you don't want to hurt your kid.

Ah now that's a bit different. If your son lives with you,then I can see why both he and you would want to remain together. But all the same, Irish, I'm an Irish woman myself with a Polish husband and I would say, think very long and hard before you decide to uproot yourself and move to Poland. It's one thing visiting it for holidays and quite another living there. Also your child is basically 'Irish' more than he's Polish because culturally he's more Irish and he will find it a huge change. Also depending on where you're moving to, what are the opportunities for him as he gets older, jobs, education and so on. Just think it all through very carefully.

As to the other, don't cause a whole lot of drama in your child's life - how do you propose to get him out of the country? Just take him without saying anything? Or take him openly and have a huge scene with his dad showing up at your house or the airport, you know the vibe. Either way it's not good for your son. Go to Treoir website and get the mediation people's details there. Then ask your ex to talk it through with you, using them as a buffer and see if you can reach an agreement of some kind.