Parental Rights in Germany, Austria and Switzerland

One of the lessons which I learned from the Anglo-Germanophone Conference was not to pass judgment too swiftly in respect of judicial attitudes to the Hague Convention in these Germanophone countries. Whilst we in England have grown accustomed to the fact that unmarried fathers acquire parental authority by being named on the birth certificate or by a relatively straight-forward application to the court the position for unmarried fathers in the Germanophone countries has only recently begun to change. In Germany as a result of the ECtHR decision in Zaunegger and a Federal Constitutional Court decision the German Constitution is being changed to make it easier for unmarried father's to acquire PR. A similar situation exists in Austria.
So when dealing with a case involving an unmarried father from these countries it would seem wise to pause for a moment to consider the possible implications and to recognise that judges in those countries are applying a laws which are (or were until recently) very different from ours in respect of the rights of unmarried fathers.

Bearing that in mind the suggestion that the 1980 Hague Convention distinction between rights of custody and rights of access is redundant is far from being the case. A far greater alignment of the laws of the signatory states would be required before one could contemplate a change to the Conventions to eradicate that distinction.