In response to the request for support for the Klaman family, Poland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski outlined the investigative steps taken by the Ministry in connection with the Ordo Iuris Institute’s intervention.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs stressed that the case is of a cross-border nature, and therefore the Ministry of Justice will play the leading role as the central authority. Foreign Affairs declared their readiness to cooperate with them.
At the same time, the Minister of Justice Adam Bodnar, in response to the Ordo Iuris Institute’s intervention, indicated that he does not intend to take any action to have the children returned to Poland, because in this case, according to him, the Swedish state has exclusive jurisdiction.
This is in spite of Swedish social welfare having started their proceedings to take the family’s three youngest children away from their parents after these Polish nationals had moved back to Poland.
The Ordo Iuris Institute, which provides legal assistance to the family and condemns the Polish Justice Ministry’s behavior in this concrete case, has prepared a petition addressed to the prime ministers of Poland and Sweden with an appeal to intervene in this case.
The drama of a Polish family
Ewa and Robert Klaman had lived in Sweden for nine years, where they raised their four daughters: Kinga, Tarja, Aurora, and Diana. The parents had obliged the children to help with some minor housework, which did not please the eldest of the girls. The teenager, by her own admission, lied to the school superintendent by telling him that her parents were mentally abusing her.
Then, without verifying the truthfulness of the child’s claim, the Swedish social services placed Kinga in foster care. The officials then asked the parents if they would also surrender their other children to them voluntarily, despite the fact that no custody proceedings were pending against them. In response, the parents left for Poland, leaving all their belongings in Sweden.
Both the parents and their children hold only Polish citizenship. When returning to the country in February of this year, the couple did not have their parental rights restricted in any way as regards their three younger daughters. Furthermore, at that time a decision had not yet been made regarding the Swedish Welfare Commission’s immediate assumption of custody over the girls, nor was there any Swedish court ruling upholding such a decision. Despite this, the Nysa District Court, contrary to the position of the Polish institutions which were monitoring the family’s situation, issued decisions to immediately take the children away from their parents and hand them over to the Swedish side.
The Ministry of Justice, still only at the stage of the court proceedings, provided the Swedish side with a copy of the report on the Klaman family which had been prepared by a Polish probation officer, who had found no grounds for taking the children away. The Ministry asked the Swedish institution to therefore withdraw its application. Nonetheless, the Swedish authorities, in response to the letter from the Polish Ministry of Justice, upheld their request to surrender the children, indicating that a foster family was already waiting for them in Sweden.
We wrote more on this case here.
Poland’s Ministry of Justice washes its hands of the affair
With all four children now in foster families in Sweden, the Ordo Iuris Institute’s lawyers have asked both Justice Minister Adam Bodnar and Foreign Affairs Minister Radosław Sikorski to intervene in the case to assist in the minors’ custody proceedings. For the time being, the Ordo Iuris Institute’s aim is first and foremost to bring about a situation in which, at the very least, all the children will be placed with only one foster family that is related to them and living in Poland until the conclusion of the proceedings regarding their parents, namely their aunt and uncle (whom the children know well and with whom they feel comfortable). In addition, the Ordo Iuris Institute’s lawyers demanded information from both ministers regarding the actions taken in the case and whether the Consular Section of the Polish Embassy in Stockholm is monitoring the ongoing proceedings in Sweden.
In response to the request from Ordo Iuris’ lawyers to take action and provide support for these Polish citizens, the Ministry of Justice stated that it had completed “the tasks related to the Swedish side’s request” and indicated that the Swedish courts and institutions have exclusive jurisdiction over the children, despite the fact that they are Poles. It also recommended establishing or continuing cooperation with the Polish consular services in Sweden or else contacting the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Actions by the Polish consul
The Ordo Iuris Institute, in tandem with its intervention with the Minister of Justice, also addressed a request to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Radosław Sikorski indicated several steps that he had taken in consultation with the Polish Consul in Stockholm after receiving the notification.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ explanation, the Polish Consul in Stockholm had requested that the local authorities, specifically the social services in the municipality of Eksjö, should clarify the situation – in particular, the issue which had been raised by the parents concerning the fact that they are being prevented from contacting their children as well as the services’ failure to consider temporarily placing the children in the care of a related foster family in Poland. The consul also highlighted the fact that the Polish Embassy in Stockholm had not been provided with any information regarding the removal of the children from their parents and their placement in foster care.
The Swedish social services, in response to the consul’s questions, indicated that Swedish legislation had been applied in this case and that the case of the children’s removal had been examined by the courts in both Poland and Sweden.
The consul then sent another letter to the social services in the municipality of Eksjö and again drew attention to the lack of information being provided to the Polish Embassy in Stockholm regarding the children of Polish citizens being placed in foster care, moreover in three different foster families rather than together, despite the fact that the girls are sisters. The consul is currently awaiting a response. At the same time, he has also made efforts to access court documents concerning the Klaman family’s case from the Swedish court.
Significantly, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, while offering assurances that he had undertaken an investigation immediately after being notified, at the same time indicated that the case was of a cross-border nature and that the Ministry of Justice was therefore the leading central authority. Poland’s Foreign Minister, in a letter to the Ordo Iuris Institute, declared his readiness to cooperate with the Minister of Justice and possibly provide assistance to the Klaman family.
The necessary intervention of the Polish authorities
According to the Ordo Iuris Institute’s lawyers, taking into account the principle of prioritizing foster care provided by persons related to or in affinity with the minors, as well as the obligations arising from the Convention on the Rights of the Child of 20 November 1989, it is fully justified to request that the Swedish authorities temporarily place the minors in the care of a related foster family in Poland that will provide them with a stable and safe environment. The family’s attorneys emphasize that placing the children in such a foster family would be conducive to alleviating the difficulties of separation from their parents, creating natural conditions for the children to develop.
“The actions of the Swedish authorities must be considered from the outset as contrary to the norms of international law, in particular Article 8 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which grants children the right to be brought up in their natural family environment and an atmosphere of happiness, love, and understanding, as well as the protection of family life from interference by the state,” points out attorney Magdalena Prządka-Leszczyńska of the Ordo Iuris Centre for Process Intervention.
“Furthermore, in a situation where a Swedish court issued an order to take the children away from the Polish nationals only two weeks after their return to Poland, it is most surprising that the Polish Ministry of Justice considered that such a court decision, which had been taken without proper jurisdiction, should be recognized and enforced in Poland under EU law – and this in spite of the fact that those Polish institutions monitoring the family’s situation had not observed alarming signals which would justify taking the children away.
“To make things worse, now that the children have been separated from their parents, removed from the country, and divided among various foster families, the Polish Minister of Justice does not see a possibility to intervene in the case,” she concluded.
