NEW DIRECTOR AT AUSTRIAN CENTRAL AUTHORITY FOR

UNCLAS VIENNA 003744

SIPDIS
FOR CA/OCS/CI - ECONWAY
EUR/AGS-VVIKMANIS-KELLER
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KOCI AU
SUBJECT: NEW DIRECTOR AT AUSTRIAN CENTRAL AUTHORITY FOR
HAGUE CONVENTION

REF: PHILLIPS/CI EMAIL OF NOV 3, 2005

1. SUMMARY: Director of the Austrian Central Authority
Werner Schuetz, an architect of the Hague Child Abduction
Convention, will retire shortly. He is replaced by a
judge with a far different background. Post offers
suggestions on how we might seize this opportunity to
change the dynamics with his new office. END SUMMARY

2. On December 1, Werner Schuetz will retire from the
Austrian Ministry of Justice (MOJ). He has been the
first and only head of the Austrian Central Authority
(ACA) for the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of
International Child Abduction since Austria acceded to
the Convention in 1988.

3. A career bureaucrat with the MOJ, Schuetz considered
himself one of the godfathers of the Convention, having
been a major contributor to its establishment.
Nonetheless, he took a strict legalistic approach to
interpreting the Convention. Working with virtually no
support staff, he did not adopt a caseworker approach to
incoming applications. He rather saw the ACA's role as
simply certifying that a case met minimal standards
before forwarding it to the responsible court for action.
Although he eventually helped write legislation
strengthening the GOA's Hague implementation, he
sometimes seemed to take any criticism of Austrian
implementation as a personal affront.

4. The new director, Robert Fucik, is from a younger
generation, with a different background. He comes to the
ACA from outside the federal judicial branch. He is
currently at the Vienna State Superior Court, where he
has been a judge for seven years. He is a frequently-
published author of legal articles and lectures on family
law topics for judges-in-training, attorneys, and others
interested in family law. He is described as "open" and
"fair minded" but some observers do not believe he will
stay long in the position - certainly not as long as
Schuetz's twenty-five years in the civil law department
of the MOJ.

5. Embassy Comment: Judges in Austria generally see
themselves as mediators rather than impartial seekers of
truth. They question witnesses and suggest resolutions,
even as they have little power to force litigants to
comply with their rulings. While this can make them
appear less "distant" than U.S. judges, they are even
more fierce on the independence of the judiciary than
American jurists. End Comment.

6. Post has provided CA/OCS/CI with suggestions for a
Fresh Start approach, including a letter of welcome from
Consular A/S Harty, a visit by senior CI representative
in early 2006, and an invitation to an appropriate
meeting or conference in Washington in Spring 2006. We
would also think it appropriate to provide Fucik with
materials describing how the U.S. CA functions and how CI
works with judges, in particular, in order to perhaps
provide a view of how the ACA might evolve.
Van Voorst