US embassy cable - 05VIENNA3744

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