The everlasting problem of determining the habitual residence of the child for the purposes of an international child abduction

A view from Salamanca SAP nº. 844/2022, of November 2

Abstract

In the European Union the international element is increasingly present in family relations, posing frequent problems in cases of wrongful removal or retention of children between Member States of the European Union, in which the solution is articulated through the Brussels IIb Regulation and the Convention of 1980. Both instruments operate around the concept of the habitual residence of the child, the definition of which is not provided for in either the Brussels IIb Regulation or the Convention of 1980. The aforementioned vicissitudes are not alien to the cases to be resolved by Spanish courts, as is the case of the Provincial Court of Salamanca, whose Judgment no. 844/2022, of 2 November, will be analysed throughout this paper.