- Maintaining contact with a child is not only a right, but also a duty of a parent,
- The right to maintain contact with the child also exists if parental authority is terminated,
- Contacts with the child can take various forms - personal meetings, but also correspondence, phone calls or conversations via instant messaging (such as Skype),
- When deciding on contact, the court will be guided primarily by the welfare of the child.
Contact with a child is not only a right, but also a duty of a parent. According to the wording of Article 113 of the Family and Guardianship Code, parents and their child have the right and duty to maintain contact with each other, and this regardless of parental authority. Consequently, we will also have the right to meet with the child if we are deprived of parental authority, or if it is limited and its exercise is entrusted to the other parent.
Contact with a child may be regulated in a divorce judgment, in an order issued by the guardianship court, or by agreement between the parents. However, regardless of the form in which they are regulated, it is worth pointing out that the right to contact with a child is not only the right to meet and be with the child in person (visitation, taking the child away from his or her place of permanent residence). Contact with the child is also the maintenance of correspondence, the use of other means of communication at a distance (telephone contact), including electronic means of communication (email, Skype, etc.).
As a rule, if a child resides permanently with one parent, the manner in which the other parent maintains contact with the child shall be determined jointly by the parents, guided by the child's welfare and taking into account the child's reasonable wishes. However, what to do if there is no agreement?
It is certainly worthwhile to enlist the help of a lawyer to help us precisely formulate the request for the regulation of contacts. The more precise and detailed our demands and expectations are, the more precise the court's ruling will be. This, in turn, will allow us to avoid, or at least minimize, misunderstandings and doubts when the said decision comes to be implemented.
In the application, we should indicate the specific days and times we would like to spend with the child. We should also not forget holidays, or other occasions that are important to us, such as birthdays, father's day, mother's day, children's day, etc. If we plan to spend part of the vacations, or winter vacations with the child, this should also be mentioned. Let's remember that the other parent also has the right to spend special occasions with the child, even if he is the one who lives with our child on a daily basis. The solution is to „divide” these important events, and so, for example, establish that in even-numbered years it is we who spend Christmas with the child, while in odd-numbered years, this privilege will fall to the other parent.
It is also worth filing a motion to secure our request - once it is granted, we will have the right to contact with the child in the amount specified by the court already during the pending proceedings.
The fee for the application to regulate contacts is PLN 40.00 and is paid to the bank account of the competent court. However, the competent court to hear the case is the court of residence of the child. Therefore, if our child resides, for example, in Poznan, it is the court in this city that will have jurisdiction to hear the case.
The request should be sent to the court with a copy served on the other party so that she has an opportunity to respond to our demands. If her expectations and belief in our parenting competence are extremely different from our point of view, it may be that in the course of the case we will be referred for an examination to an expert psychologist, whose task will be to assess our parenting competence and the bond between us and the child, and thus make an assessment as to the suggested frequency and form of contact with the child.
When initiating proceedings to regulate contacts with the child, we should not forget that it is not our own interests, plans and assumptions that are most important during the case, but the welfare of the child, and it is this that the court will be primarily guided by when issuing a decision. It is increasingly common that in the course of a contact settlement case, the parties opt for mediation. They are then referred to a professional mediator, whose task is to help work out a joint solution, taking into account both the expectations of each parent and, above all, the needs and interests of the child. If the mediation is successful, then it will be concluded with the signing of a settlement agreement, which will then be approved by the court. However, if, despite the support of an independent, impartial third party such as a mediator, no agreement is reached, the case will return to the courtroom. This is because participation in mediation is voluntary, and either party can refuse to agree to it, or withdraw from mediation.
