Universal-Womens-accesss-to-justice-Publications-Practitioners-Guide-Series-2016-ENG

30 PRACTITIONERS GUIDE No. 12
integrity cannot be superseded by other rights, including the
right to property and the right to privacy”. 50
Parental rights of fathers to have contact with their children
may be invoked as entitlement of men accused of violence to
violate the safety and well being of women and their children.
However, in such a situation, the CEDAW Committee has
observed that the best interests of the child must be taken into
account in the existence of a context of domestic violence. 51
Relatedly, because legal obligations surrounding violence
against women arise under international law, competing
domestic law claims cannot be used to override these claims. 52
50
A.T. v Hungary, CEDAW Communication No 2/2003 (26 January
2005), paragraph 9.3.
51
Angela González Carreño v Spain, CEDAW Communication No
47/2012, UN Doc CEDAW/C/58/D/47/2012 (2014), paragraph 9.4:
“The Committee observes that during the time when the regime of
judicially determined visits was being applied, both the judicial
authorities and the social services and psychological experts had as
their main purpose normalizing relations between father and daughter,
despite the reservations expressed by those two services on the
conduct of F.R.C. The relevant decisions do not disclose an interest by
those authorities in evaluating all aspects of the benefits or harms to
the child of the regime applied. It is also noteworthy that the decision
which ushered in a regime of unsupervised visits was adopted without
a prior hearing of the author and her daughter, and that the continued
non-payment of child support by F.R.C. was not taken into account in
that context. All of these elements reflect a pattern of action which
responds to a stereotyped conception of visiting rights based on
formal equality which, in the present case, gave clear advantages to
the father despite his abusive conduct and minimized the situation of
mother and daughter as victims of violence, placing them in a
vulnerable position. In this connection, the Committee recalls that in
matters of child custody and visiting rights, the best interests of the
child must be a central concern and that when national authorities
adopt decisions in that regard they must take into account the
existence of a context of domestic violence.”
52
Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1155 UNTS 331, Article
27: “A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as
justification for its failure to perform a treaty”.