Czech Constitutional Court Sides with Mother Who Drove 1,200 km Every Weekend to See Her Children

The Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic has ruled in favour of a mother of three who was required to travel 1,200 kilometres every week — roughly the distance from Brno to Paris — just to pick up her children for the weekend and bring them back again. The court's decision was announced on Wednesday, and the case has now been sent back to the Prague Regional Court for review.

A custody dispute after divorce

The case concerns an eight-year-old girl and six-year-old twins, all born after their parents separated and the mother relocated. Courts initially approved an arrangement under which the children lived with their mother, but over time the amount spent with their father grew — partly because the eldest daughter had started first grade.

Eventually, the mother was left with just three weekends a month: every Friday evening she had to drive from Prague to Zlín to collect the children, then return them on Sunday evening. Previously, the parents had met halfway between the two cities to hand the children over. The woman challenged this arrangement, arguing that she was being punished not only through the loss of a significant share of her time with the children, but also through steep alimony payments and gruelling travel.

Her complaint stated: "It is not in the children's best interest for their mother to drive 600 km there and back on a Friday, arrive home utterly exhausted, spend Saturday struggling to look after the children, and then set off again on Sunday morning for another seven-hour, 600-km journey." By her calculations, she was covering a total of 1,200 kilometres every single weekend.

The Constitutional Court's position

The panel of judges, presided over by reporting judge Josef Baxa, found the mother's arguments convincing and upheld her complaint. In the court's view, the lower court had failed to sufficiently justify why contact with the children was limited to weekends alone, especially when the children themselves wanted more balanced involvement from both parents.

"The chosen arrangement for travel between the parents' distant places of residence places a considerable burden on both the children and the mother. The court placed the entire responsibility for transporting the children on the mother, without assessing how this decision affects the children themselves. When a mother spends a substantial portion of her allotted time with the children behind the wheel, the quality of that time together inevitably suffers," Baxa explained.

The Constitutional Court also took issue with the argument that the mother had somehow acted wrongfully by moving after the separation. The judges stressed that custody arrangements must never be used as a form of punishment against either parent.

"While a unilateral change in a child's place of residence is indeed a significant factor to be weighed when determining custody and contact arrangements, more than five years on, it can no longer be treated as a permanent, overriding reason that justifies a substantial restriction of maternal care," the judge added.

The case now returns to the Prague Regional Court, which must reach a more balanced decision — one that properly takes into account the best interests of all three children.

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Source: novinky.cz