Czech Constitutional Court: turning a child against the other parent can lead to institutional care

According to the experts, the father of a minor daughter systematically turned her against her mother until the girl refused any contact with her. When the courts had exhausted milder measures, they ordered institutional care — and the Czech Constitutional Court upheld it. Judgment file no. I. ÚS 1029/26 states a conclusion that has never been voiced so clearly in custody disputes: where one parent's manipulation of the child causes parental alienation from the other parent and nothing else works, placing the child in the neutral environment of an institution may be the best thing a court can do for the child.

The facts are painful and, unfortunately, typical. The parents divorce, the daughter stays with her father and contact with her mother gradually fades. In September of the year before last, the district court dismissed the mother's custody petition, ordered institutional care for one year, set contact arrangements for both parents, ordered joint therapy for the mother and daughter and required the father to undergo psychotherapy. The regional court of appeal quashed part of the decision and remitted it for further proceedings, changed the place where institutional care was to be provided and modified the contact arrangements. The father turned to the Constitutional Court, arguing that institutional care was a disproportionate interference with family life and that one meeting a week lasting one hour could not replace a normal relationship between a child and a parent.

The First Chamber of the Constitutional Court (judge rapporteur Dita Řepková) dismissed the complaint in part as inadmissible and in part on the merits. The starting point of the judgment is conservative and consistent with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: institutional care is always the last resort. A court must first consider every alternative — placing the child in the care of a natural person, care by the wider family or close persons and, depending on the child's age, independent living with the parents' consent. Only when none of these routes serves the best interests of the child does an institution come into play.

The novelty that makes the judgment noteworthy lies one step further. The Constitutional Court expressly states that the conditions for ordering institutional care may be met even where the reason is not neglect, poverty or a parent's inability to care, but the very opposite — a parent "cares" for the child so intensively that, through manipulation, he deprives the child of the relationship with the other parent. Parental alienation syndrome is no longer merely a rhetorical ornament in custody disputes; it can become a separate ground for removing a child from the family.

In this particular case, according to the Constitutional Court, several things were proven at once. The father had long been creating a negative image of the mother and the girl adopted his strong views. After a temporary placement in a children's diagnostic institute, contact with the mother did take place, but the relationship continued to deteriorate — precisely in the periods when the daughter was in contact only with her father. The manipulation was also confirmed by changes in the girl's attitude towards other close persons, including her older half-sister and a teacher who had offered her temporary accommodation. The overall picture also includes the fact that at the end of April 2024 the father twice attempted suicide; the district court said it could not risk leaving the girl in his sole care. Other experts had also proposed placement in a neutral environment at various stages of the proceedings.

The language the Constitutional Court used to describe the father's conduct is crucial. It does not speak of "inappropriate upbringing" or a "conflict between the parents". It describes conduct in which a parent systematically destroys the child's relationship with the other parent and those around the child as ill-treatment of the child's psyche and of the child itself. This places manipulation in the same category of argument as physical or emotional abuse — and justifies an equally forceful intervention by the state.

For clients going through divorce or custody proceedings, the judgment has two dimensions. The first is a warning. A parent who believes that "protecting the child from the other parent" by badmouthing, influencing or deliberately blocking contact is a legitimate tactic in a custody battle may find that the court removes the child from both parents and places it outside the family. Not as a punishment — institutional care is not a repressive measure — but because only in a neutral environment does the child have a chance to restore the damaged relationship with the other parent. The second dimension is guidance for a parent exposed to manipulation by a former partner. The judgment shows what evidence the courts actually weighed: an expert opinion on the child's psychosocial development, documentation of contact and how it developed over time, changes in the child's attitude towards a wider circle of close persons, and the recommendations of experts at all stages of the proceedings. This is not a dispute decided by one assertion against another.

The judgment also confirms that courts must go through the entire ladder of alternatives before resorting to an institution. Where the contested decision gives sound reasons why care by a natural person, care by the wider family or another milder option is not possible, the decision will withstand constitutional review. Where the reasoning is missing or merely formal, there is room for a successful constitutional complaint — it just was not that scenario here.

It is also worth noting that Judge Wintr attached a dissenting opinion to the judgment. That alone suggests that the line beyond which "mere" dysfunctional parenting becomes a reason to remove a child from both parents is not fully settled in case law, and further cases with a similar factual core will have to sharpen its contours.

For practice this means one thing: in custody proceedings it pays to address the risk of manipulation early and systematically, not only once the child's relationship with the other parent has died out. Expert examination, qualified mediation and documented contact are the tools that can put the case on the right track before it reaches a solution as drastic as institutional care.

Source: Czech Constitutional Court, press release TZ 71/2026 of 9 September 2026, judgment file no. I. ÚS 1029/26 (with a dissenting opinion of Judge Wintr).

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