This is the conversation I find people most afraid to start, so I'll start it gently.
On one side of my desk sits a parent, often the one who stayed in Poland, exhausted from holding up a child's whole world alone, while the other parent has simply faded out. No visits. No support. Sometimes no address. They ask me, half-ashamed of the question: "Can I just... have full rights? Can I protect my child from someone who isn't really here?"
On the other side sits a different fear entirely: a parent living abroad, lying awake worried that distance itself, a job in another country, an ocean between visits, will be used to cut them out of their child's life.
Both of you deserve a clear, honest answer. In Poland, the legal idea at the centre of this is parental authority (władza rodzicielska), the bundle of rights and duties a parent has over a child's life and upbringing. And yes, a court can take it away. But when, and what it really means, is far more nuanced than either of you fears.
When a parent can be stripped of parental authority
A Polish court can deprive a parent of parental authority for the gross neglect of their duties (Article 111 of the Family Code). A 2026 case shows clearly what that looks like in practice.
There, a father, after leaving prison, had seen his daughter twice (once merely "with friends"), paid none of the ordered support (it was being covered by the State Alimony Fund instead), struggled with alcohol, and moved in criminal circles. The court deprived him of parental authority. Several points from that ruling matter to you:
You do not have to prove violence or a single dramatic harm. Persistent disinterest, a parent who is simply, lastingly absent, with no realistic prognosis of change, is enough. A steady pattern of not showing up can itself amount to gross neglect.
Not paying support is part of the neglect, not just a money matter. Polish law treats the duty to provide for a child as part of parental authority itself. So a parent who won't pay isn't only a debtor; they are failing a core duty of parenthood, and that failure counts.
The court doesn't have to try gentler measures first. A common myth is that a court must first limit or suspend authority, and only then, much later, remove it. Not so, the court said this directly. Where the neglect is clear and unchanging, deprivation can follow without a long ladder of warnings (especially where, as here, authority had already been suspended and the parent made no effort to restore it).
Now the two reassurances I most want you to hear
Because I've watched both sides misunderstand this, and suffer needlessly for it.
Losing parental authority is NOT a ban on contact. This surprises almost everyone. A parent deprived of authority can usually still see their child. Authority is about decision-making and responsibility for the child's life; contact is a separate right, handled separately. So deprivation does not, by itself, slam the door on the relationship, for either parent.
It is not permanent. Parental authority can be restored. A parent who genuinely turns things around, real, sustained contact, paying support, staying sober, can ask the court to give it back. Polish family law is built to protect the child now, not to brand a parent forever.
And one more thing that tells you something about how seriously these courts take this: even when the absent parent's whereabouts were unknown, the court appointed a lawyer to defend them, who argued, properly, for the case to be dismissed. These decisions are not rubber-stamped. The child's interest is protected, but so is fairness to the absent parent.
What this means when one parent lives abroad
This is where I most need you to hear me clearly, in both directions:
If you're the parent abroad, afraid of being cut out: distance, by itself, is not neglect. What protects your rights is presence in your child's life, keeping contact, paying support, making real effort across the miles. Courts look at disinterest and a lack of prognosis, not at your postcode. And if life pulled you away for a while, the door is not permanently shut, staying engaged, and acting through the court, is how you hold your place.
If you're the parent left holding everything: a co-parent who has truly vanished, no contact, no support, no prognosis of change, is not beyond the reach of the law, even from another country. You are allowed to ask the court to recognise reality and protect your child.
Cross-border parental responsibility, relocation, and which country decides are governed by EU rules and the Hague framework, and turn on your specific facts, so this is a conversation to have early, before positions harden.
A steady word to end on
Whichever side of this you're on, please don't act out of fear or exhaustion alone. Taking, or keeping, parental rights is one of the most consequential, and most misunderstood, areas of family law. It is rarely as final, or as one-sided, as people imagine: deprivation isn't a contact ban, and it isn't forever; presence and effort matter more than geography.
Bring me what's really happening, the absences, the silences, or your own fear of being pushed out, in English or in Polish. We'll look at it calmly, with your child's well-being and your own rights both held in view, and find the path that protects what matters.
This article explains principles from a recent (2026) Polish court ruling, anonymised in the public case database. It is general information, not legal advice, and every case turns on its own facts. For advice on your situation, please contact the firm.