Settlement of disputes between parents

For art. 709 ter of the Italian Civil Code, the solution of disputes arising between parents in relation to the exercise of parental responsibility or the methods of custody is the jurisdiction of the judge of the ongoing proceedings.
For other proceedings, the court of the place of residence of the minor is competent.
In the event of serious breaches or acts that in any case harm the minor or hinder the proper performance of the procedures for custody, the judge may modify the provisions in force and may, even jointly:

  1. admonish the defaulting parent;
  2. order the compensation of damages, to be paid by one of the parents, against the minor;
  3. to arrange for compensation for damages, borne by one of the parents, against the other;
  4. to order the defaulting parent to pay a pecuniary administrative sanction, from a minimum of 75 euros to a maximum of 5,000
    euros in favor of the Cassa delle finende.

The measures taken by the judge of the procedure can be challenged in the ordinary ways.
A particular reference should be made to the so-called ‘PAS’ The parental alienation syndrome or parental alienation syndrome
(PAS, sParental Alienation Syndrome) is a controversial dysfunctional psychological dynamic which, according to the theories of
the American doctor Richard Gardner, would be activated on minor children involved both in conflictual contexts between
parents, as in contexts of alleged domestic violence.
The PAS has been the subject of debate and examination – both in the scientific and legal fields – since its proposal in 1985; in fact,
it is not recognized as a mental disorder by the majority of the international scientific and legal community.
In the United States and other countries, there has been a heated debate on the PAS, within which the hypothesis of defining a
new concept has emerged, the “parental alienation disorder” (PAD, Parental Alienation Disorder), proposed by William Bernet
(one of the main proponents of the inclusion of the PAS in the fifth edition of the DSM), and summarized by him in an article in
October 2008 in the American Journal of Family Therapy.
The Italian Society of Child and Adolescent Neuropsychiatry (SINPIA), in its Guidelines on child abuse, published in 2007,
included the PAS among the possible forms of psychological abuse, whereas, instead, the former President of the Italian Society of
Psychiatry defines the PAS as “devoid of clinical prerequisites, validity and reliability”.
In any case, the issue is still being studied and is far from excluded by legal practitioners and experts, given some judgments of
2010 and 2011 passed on the issue by the ECHR, European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.