09.04.2025

First disqualification for parental alienation

parental for severe psychological abuse of the minor, in the form of parental alienation, abusive conduct, gross neglect of parental duties and serious detriment to the best interests of the child, endangering the child's health and development, and for educational neglect.

Parental alienation is a form of severe psychological abuse of a minor by one parent in order to negatively influence the child's relationship with the other parent.

This phenomenon is recognized by the definition given by Law No 217/22 May 2003 on preventing and combating domestic violence and psychological violence. From a scientific point of view, on February 1, 2016, the recognition and the need to combat parental alienation was achieved through the recognition of the protocol signed by the Institute of Judicial Psychology and the Romanian Association for Joint Custody, a protocol to which the Romanian College of Psychologists also adhered, through a provision published on February 25, 2016, in the Official Gazette.

The current regulation of Law no. 272/2004, as amended by Law no. 123/10.05.2024, enshrines in law very clearly that parental alienation ("parental alienation") is a form of psychological violence, which is established by psychological evaluations, and is grounds for sanctioning the alienating parent with the loss of parental rights.

At the time of the adoption of Law No 123/2024, the courts had already been sanctioning alienating parents for a long time, including the loss of the minor's home.

The forfeiture of parental rights for parental alienation, as psychological abuse, is a first, however, especially since the court of first instance handed down this decision before the legislative amendment by Law 123/2024. We find ourselves, once again, in a situation in which the legislator, one step back, has done no more than to enshrine the jurisprudential solutions at the legislative level.

Identified and described since the 1990s by American psychologists (see M. Walsh and J.M. Bone - Parental Alienation Syndrome: An Age-Old Custody Problem, 71 Fla. B.J. 93 (June 1997); Douglas Darnall, Ph.D (1997) - "Three Types of Parental Alienators"; Warshak R.A. - Current controversies regarding Parental Alienation Syndrome. American Journal of Forensic Psychology, 19 (3), 29-59.), parental alienation syndrome has been recognized and its sanctioning has been codified in the legislation of the most developed countries in the world, including Romania.

In general, the aim of alienation is to gain custody or retain custody of the child by the alienating parent, without the involvement of the alienated parent and by excluding him/her. The alienating activity may extend to the alienated parent's family, as well as to his or her friends and relatives.

In the case-law of the courts, but also in the case-law of the ECHR (see, in this regard, the judgments in Micnheva v. Bulgaria, Case Micnheva v. Bulgaria , 2.09.2010, Zavrel v. Czech Republic, 18.04.2007, etc.), it has often been found that there has been a violation of Art. 8 of the Convention, holding: 'Specifically, in a definition given in the literature, alienation means that through thoughts, actions and verbal or non-verbal actions and manners a child is emotionally abused, indoctrinated ("brainwashed") ("brainwashed"),') in order to make him believe that the other parent is an enemy or to suggest hostility or inferiority to him. The other parent is bad-mouthed in front of the child by the alienator, the child's visits with the alienated parent are restricted, or the alienator attempts to control the activities the child will do when with the other parent. The phenomenon of parental alienation is a form of emotional abuse of children against which they cannot defend themselves. It occurs irrespective of the gender of the alienator (whether it is the mother or the father), the age (grandparents can be very strong alienators) or the level of education of the alienator. By his or her behavior, the alienating parent tries to attract the child to his or her side and to introduce him or her against the otherparent". In the case in question, it isheld that "against the background of the minor's mental immaturity and lack of experience, the alienating parent deprives the child of the possibility of discerning between right and wrong, the child being influenced and manipulated".

Parental alienation is established by psychologists following a psychological assessment ordered by the court.

It is definitely not parental alienation if the minor refuses to see or spend time with the parent because he or she has been the victim of abuse of any kind by that parent, and this is proven by the evidence in the trial. The courts have always emphasized in their judgments these issues and the distinction between parental alienation and situations where the child does not want to spend time with the parent because the parent has assaulted or endangered the child or has engaged in other inappropriate behavior (attempted suicide in the presence of the child, sexual relations in the presence of the child, alcohol or drug abuse, etc.). In contrast to such cases, in the hypothesis of parental alienation, the child cannot objectively justify the refusal to see the alienated parent.

In the case under consideration, in which the court ordered the deprivation of parental rights, the alienated parent had not seen his child for two years without any objective justification.

In the literature, it has been established that the parent obsessed by alienation usually has one cause: to attract the child to his side, so that they fight together in a campaign to destroy the relationship with the other parent.

Manifestations of the parental alienation syndrome have also been identified, including the following:

- The alienating parent conditions the child, provides care according to the behavior he/she demands;

- The alienating parent withdraws affection from the child when the child does not participate in the denigration campaign;

- the alienating parent has unrealistic expectations of the child; it is not natural to expect a child to cooperate in the smear campaign against the other parent. The risk is that the child becomes confused, tense, frustrated.

- Prematurely making the child responsible - the child is expected to memorize a wide variety of wrongs suffered at the hands of the parent, to make false accusations of abuse against the parent.

- Over-protection of the child - the child is made to believe that any contact with the other parent is dangerous, portrays the other parent as a monster. It creates anxiety in the child and increases the child's dependency on the alienating parent.

The psychologist has the difficult task of identifying parental alienation and the courts have the even more difficult task of taking appropriate measures in the best interests of the child.

But this is not enough, in practice it has been found that parental alienation leaves deep scars on the child, and therefore trauma therapy is necessary to remove the effects of alienation, but there are either too few psychologists specialized in this, or they are too reluctant to do such therapy. At one point, an expert psychologist specializing in parental alienation put it very succinctly, comparing the situation of the alienated child, having escaped the nightmare of this severe psychological abuse, with that of a man escaped from a camp - he is afraid of everything around him, he is afraid of leaves!

There is certainly still a lot to be done, but the first solution of disqualification from parental rights for parental alienation should be a wake-up call for alienating parents, to make them stop, to make them think twice before continuing on this path that does not bring them any good, neither for themselves, but especially for their children, because today's abusers are tomorrow's abusers!

An article by Cătălina Dicu (cdicu@stoica-asociatii.ro), Senior Partner - STOICA & ASOCIAȚII.