1216-2574 / USD 20.00 © 2015 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest Acta Juridica Hungarica 56, No 4, pp. 317–342 (2015) DOI: 10.1556/026.2015.56.4.6 International Child Abduction Cases in Hungary A Comprehensive Summary of Statistics, Legal Framework and Important Case Law by Tamás Dezső ziegler * Abstract. This article summarizes the background of child abduction cases related to Hungary, giving a comprehensive analysis of such cases between the period of 2000 and 2014. In the frst section, the reader fnds a statistical analysis and the second part deals with the legal and practical background. The fnal conclusions give some recommendations for the European and domestic legislators. The essay was created as part of a report published by the European Parliament, collected by the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law on the actual situation of child abduction in Europe. Keywords: child abduction, 1980 Hague Convention on International Child Abduction, Brussels IIa Regulation, European Court of Human Rights, case law 1. INTRODUCTION Hungary became part of the European Union in 2004, and since then, there has been a continuous, linear increase in the number of child abduction cases in the country, clearly shows the increasingly importance of the problem. The increased internationalization of Hungary and its citizens has resulted in increased international relations between citizens and foreigners. In 1999, a report by the Hague Conference on Private International Law found 1 that there had only been a couple of cases (only eight incoming return applications) related to Hungary, while currently the number of such cases has increased to over one hundred per year. Interestingly, the assessment highlighted two important facts which would appear not to have changed over time. First, the typical case of child abduction involve a family situation in which a woman who possesses Hungarian citizenship married a man from Western-Europe or Canada. They subsequently fle for divorce, the woman takes the child to Hungary and the man starts a procedure for the return of the child. In most of these cases, especially the most important ones, it was the man who wanted the child to be returned to a Western-European country. Unfortunately, however, there is no way in Hungary to obtain proper statistics regarding gender balance on such questions as no authority keeps a record of the gender background of such cases. This can only be confrmed by checking reports of the most important cases and by talking to practitioners. Secondly, in most of the cases, the other State concerned, i.e., the place from which the child was removed, is not typically a Central- or Eastern-European country (with the exception of Austria). However, there is a possibility that this will change in the future. In 2011, the Hungarian State allowed those who had Hungarian roots and live in a foreign country to obtain Hungarian citizenship via a simplifed (nearly automatically) process * Research fellow, Institute for Legal Studies CSS Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Research fellow (Frame Fp7 project). E-mail: 1 See <http://www.hcch.net/upload/stats_hu.pdf> accessed 1 July 2014.