During this reporting period, Poland continued to demonstrate problems in its implementation and application of the Hague Convention. These problems stem primarily from three factors: (a) Polish court caseload constraints that result in prolonged delays in reaching decisions on Convention return applications; (b) the lack of an adequate domestic statutory framework with enforcement mechanisms (e.g., a parent who becomes a fugitive to avoid complying with a final return judgment does not commit a "crime" -- and therefore cannot be the subject of a fugitive warrant -- unless the parent has been stripped of parental rights); and (c) a faulty translation into Polish of Article 13 of the Convention (the Polish translation radically lowers the standard for refusing returns by saying that return can be denied if it would put the child in an "unfavorable" rather than an "intolerable" situation) that some courts still use four years after the Ministry of Justice agreed in 1999 to distribute an accurate translation.
Improvements in the Polish Central Authority's responsiveness that were noted in the 2002 Report have continued and our contacts with central government officials indicate a recognition of the importance of handling Convention cases effectively. But adjudication of return applications under the Convention is still characterized by lengthy delays, courts still deny return applications based on a faulty interpretation of the Convention, and enforcement problems have not been resolved.
Officials from the Department of State in Washington and the U.S. Embassy in Poland have raised compliance issues and individual abduction cases with high-ranking officials from the Polish government repeatedly over the past year. By diplomatic note and formal demarche, the Department and the U.S. Embassy have underlined the need for the Polish government to ensure that judges adjudicating return applications use only the correct translation of the Conventions text and that the Justice Ministry remind the courts of the corrected translation.
