He was their ‘real dad’: Europe’s top rights court faulted Poland for denying it

(CN) — He raised them like his own, and DNA proved they were. But under Polish law, he couldn’t challenge the legal presumption that the children’s mother’s husband was their legal father. Years of court delays dragged on, and by the time they ended, it was too late. On Thursday, Europe’s top rights court says that failure violated his right to family life.

The applicant, only known as A.W., is a Polish army officer who lived with a married woman, W.N., from 2004 to 2009. During that time, they had two children together — a son in 2005 and a daughter in 2007. But because W.N. was still legally married to another man, her husband, B.N., was automatically listed as the father on both birth certificates.

A.W. believed he was the biological father — and so did the children. They called him their “real dad,” he later told the court. But Polish law didn’t let him directly challenge the assumption that B.N. was their legal father. Only the mother, her husband or the child, after turning 18, could bring that kind of claim. A.W.’s only option was to ask the public prosecutor to file the case on his behalf.

He tried twice. The first time was in 2006, but he withdrew the request after W.N. asked him not to move forward. She was a judge and feared the case could harm her career. The second attempt came in 2010, after their relationship ended and he lost contact with the children. This time, he pressed ahead. He even submitted DNA test results confirming he was the biological father. But prosecutors waited more than two years before opening the case.

When the case finally reached court in 2013, it stalled again. Judges couldn’t agree on who should represent the children, and that disagreement alone caused six more years of delay. A.W. tried to join the case to support the prosecution, but the court refused, citing Polish legal precedent from the 1950s that blocked him from participating.

By the time anything could move forward, both children had turned 18 — one in 2023 and the other in 2025. With that, A.W.’s chance to be legally recognized as their father was gone.

The delays didn’t end with the paternity case. In 2011, A.W. also asked the courts for a chance to see the children. That case dragged on, too. It took nearly four years just to get a final order, which allowed him one supervised visit per month. But the children’s mother and her husband refused to follow it. Despite multiple hearings, appeals and court orders, the visits never resumed.

Enforcing that order proved just as slow. At one point, it took nearly four years for a fine to be approved for noncompliance, then another three years before courts actually moved to enforce it. By then, both children were nearly grown. “The authorities were unable to enforce any contact between him and the children before the children reached the age of majority,” the judges wrote.

The European Court of Human Rights said the delays weren’t just unfortunate — they were a serious failure. Judges found that A.W. had no real way to complain about how slowly the case was moving since Polish law gave him no access to any procedure designed to address excessively long proceedings. They said the entire process was “marked by a grave lack of expedition,” meaning it dragged on far too long and without urgency.

The court concluded that Poland had violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to private and family life. The judges stressed that when children are involved, courts must act quickly because delays can irreversibly damage relationships.

Anna Natalia Schulz, an assistant professor of international and constitutional law at Kazimierz Wielki University in Poland, said the ruling brings up tough questions about how to balance biological truth with legal stability. “In Poland, if children are raised in a stable family and their legal parents do not want to change the status quo, prosecutors are often reluctant to challenge paternity,” she said. Doing so, she added, could “destabilise the family and, in particular, the situation of minor children.”

She also noted that letting someone outside the legal family, like a biological father without formal recognition, directly contest paternity could run up against long-held principles. “A person can only be determined to be descended from one woman and one man at a time,” she said. That rule, paired with the priority given to the child’s best interests, often outweighs the push to match legal status with biological reality.

Polish government officials and A.W.’s legal representatives did not respond to requests for comment.

The ruling doesn’t give A.W. legal status as the children’s father or reopen the case. But it does acknowledge that the justice system failed him. It failed to protect his bond with the children and denied him a real chance to be part of their lives.

The court ordered Poland to pay A.W. €20,000 (about $23,100) for the emotional toll of the yearslong legal fight.

The judgment will stand unless Poland asks the court’s Grand Chamber to review it within three months.

Courthouse News reporter Eunseo Hong is based in the Netherlands.