Center for the International Legal Protection of Children and Youth
About CIPC
Centre for International Legal Protection of Children and Youth (the “CIPC“) is a Slovak state administration body having power and competence in Slovakia. Our competence is defined by Act No 305/2005 Coll. on Social Protection of Children and Social Guardianship and other amendments. CIPC performs the role of an authority designated to implement international conventions and EU laws.
Our main mission is to ensure the protection and implementation of children’s rights in the international arena. In its work, CIPC emphasizes the best interest of child and assesses each case comprehensively, reflecting upon child’s individuality.
CIPC primarily provides free legal aid in civil law and offers assistance in the following:
• recovery of maintenance through international treaties, EU laws or otherwise secured reciprocity;
• return of wrongfully removed or detained children under the Hague Convention;
• parental and visitation rights in respect of their child;
• mediation relating to international adoptions under the Hague Convention and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption,
• consultation of matters within the CIPC competence;
• brokering contacts with foreign authorities within the CIPC competence.
CIPC has a team of lawyers and psychologists ready to provide affordable assistance and advice.
The European Judicial Network in civil and commercial matters (EJN)
The European Union’s wide variety of national legal systems and this diversity, together with new Union legislation, has led to a need to provide support and information through a specific network to authorities dealing with cross-border matters. These matters may involve business, consumers, employment disputes, divorce, child custody or succession issues. The Network brings together national authorities responsible for assisting local courts and was set up to facilitate judicial and legal cooperation between Member States. The Eropean Judicial Network (in civil and commercial matters) (the “EJN”) was established by Council Decision 2001/470/EC of 28 May 2001 and started operating on 1 December 2002. All Member States except Denmark participate in the EJN (in civil and commercial matters).
The Objectives of EJN (in civil and commercial matters)
Since its inception, the EJN (in civil and commercial matters) has been an important tool and provided support for the implementation of EU civil justice instruments in daily legal practice. The EJN (in civil and commercial matters) facilitates and supports relations between national judicial authorities through contact points in each Member State and thereby helps to facilitate cross-border cases. This cooperation between authorities aims to provide help for people involved in cross-border civil and commercial judicial cases.
CIPC closely cooperates with the EJN (in civil and commercial matters), being one of the contact points for the Slovak Republic, and cooperating with other contact points so as to make good use of this Network. To this end, Slovakia established a Judicial Network in Civil Matters (the “Slovak Judicial Network“). It is organized and regulated by the 2010 Internal Act of the Slovak Ministry of Justice (Instruction No. 36/2010 of Ministry of Justice) and started operating on 1 January 2011.
The contact points ensure coordination between all EJN Members at a national level where they also organize regular meetings with the other national EJN Members in order to exchange knowledge, experience and information. The contact points are there to serve contact points of the Member States, the local judicial authorities, as well as the authorities designated by the EU legal instruments for judicial cooperation in civil and commercial matters.
CIPC participates in the EJN meetings organised by the European Commission on certain topics and in specified areas as a central body under the EU laws and international treaties.