INTRODUCTION

There is no doubt that Nigel Lowe has decisively contributed to an improvement in the implementation of the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention. One of the main findings of the statistics he so efficiently elaborates for the Hague Conference on Private International Law, is that time is of the essence. It is well known that the six-week time-limit that the Hague Convention recommends in Article 11, is very oft en not met and that delayed return orders can be extremely difficult to enforce. Time, it is said, runs in favour of the abductor.

In a decision rendered on 1 February 2016, the Spanish Constitutional Court has apparently gone one step further. It decided that a return order may be in breach of the Spanish Constitution if it is delayed, the child is well-settled in its new environment, and this factor is not taken into account in the return proceedings. Whether the application was initiated swift ly has no relevance. What matters is the impact of time on the child, whose best interests should be paramount.

The present chapter, which is dedicated to Nigel Lowe in admiration and respect, seeks to explain and contextualise the Spanish Constitutional Court's decision. Contrary to what is generally assumed, the decision does not necessarily undermine the Child Abduction Convention, but is a further incentive for accelerating return proceedings and improving Spanish practice.

THE FACTS OF THE CASE

Even though it does not seem to play a significant role in the reasoning of the Constitutional Court, it is worth mentioning that in the case at hand, there were allegations of domestic violence. The Spanish mother was spending the summer holidays with the Swiss father in Greece, when there was a violent quarrel between the parents. The Greek police intervened. The mother and the five-year-old daughter then flew with the father's consent from Greece to Spain, to spend a few weeks with the maternal grandparents. The child was subsequently not returned to her place of habitual residence in Switzerland but stayed in Spain, where the mother claimed that she had suffered domestic violence throughout her relationship with the father.

In November 2013, three months aft er the child arrived in Spain, the father initiated return proceedings under the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention.