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- In wardship proceedings, the mother alleged that she and the children (aged 8, 4 and 3) had been victims of transnational abandonment. This was denied by the father, whose case was that the parties had made a consensual decision to relocate as family to Pakistan. He contended that the courts of England and Wales did not have jurisdiction in respect of the children; alternatively, that they should not exercise any jurisdiction because welfare decisions could more conveniently be made in Pakistan. Circumstances meant that the case had to be adjourned, but Mr Richard Harrison QC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, considered the situation as it stood to be one in which the children were likely to be suffering from emotional harm. It was not tolerable for them to continue to be separated from their parents. It was clear to him that the essence of the mother's case was likely to be correct. The removal of the children to Pakistan had been procured on the basis of a deception, and was thus in breach of the mother's rights of custody, and a wrongful removal for the purposes of Article 10 of Brussels IIa. Having been the primary carer throughout the children's lives, the mother was the person best placed to meet the children's emotional needs. He ordered their immediate return to this jurisdiction. Judgment, 25/09/2020, free
- The father sought contact with the child. The mother opposed all contact. In a fact-finding hearing the judge had found that the father had killed the maternal grandfather and attempted to kill the mother and maternal grandmother, by means of poisoning their coffee with thallium. The father now appealed on the basis that the judge's findings had been unsafe. King LJ's view was that the judge's order could not stand. Findings had been made which were not based on a rigorous analysis of the evidence. Nicola Davies LJ and Philips LJ agreed. The appeal was allowed and the matter remitted for retrial before a High Court judge, in order for the court to determine if the poison had been administered deliberately, and, if so, identify the perpetrator if possible. Judgment, 25/09/2020, free
- The mother had brought the daughter to England without the father's knowledge. She alleged that he had racially and sexually abused her during their marriage; they had separated in 2014 and she had subsequently come out to friends as a lesbian. On arrival in the UK, she had applied for asylum on the basis of the fear of persecution from her family as a result of her sexual orientation, from which the South African authorities had been unwilling or unable to protect her. The father's application under the 1980 Hague Convention for his daughter to be returned to South Africa had been stayed, pending the determination of the mother's asylum claim. This was an appeal against that stay, on four grounds, including that the judge had erred in considering any form of refugee status to be an absolute bar to a return under the 1980 Hague Convention. The Court of Appeal (Hickinbottom, Moylan and Peter Jackson LJJ) noted that the case raised issues regarding the apparent tension between the objective of the Hague Convention 1980, to return a wrongfully removed or retained child expeditiously to their home jurisdiction, and the principle of the 1951 Geneva Convention, that refugees should not be returned to a country where they might be persecuted, as well as issues as to the rights of children in such situations. In their view, children with refugee status could not be returned under the 1980 Hague Convention to the country from which they had been given refuge. However, there was no bar where, as transpired to be the situation in this case, the child had been named as a dependant in an application for asylum by a parent, but had made no independent asylum claim. Even where a child had been granted or had applied for refugee status, the High Court was not prevented from determining an application or making a return order, though implementation might need to be stayed. The appeal was allowed. Judgment, 25/09/2020, free
- An application by the father for the summary return of the daughter to Slovakia. The mother resisted summary return on the grounds that the daughter was settled in the United Kingdom, that the father had acquiesced in her removal, that the defence of intolerability under Article 13(b) applied, and that the father had not exercised rights of custody (the latter ground being dropped in the course of the hearing). The parents had not been married to each other. The father had last seen the child in January 2017, when the mother broke all contact with him. She moved to the United Kingdom in September 2017, in order, she told the court, to escape the father's intimidation of her. The father took no action to re-establish contact between January 2017 and January 2019, when he contacted his Slovakian lawyer. Lieven J had no doubt that the child was settled in England and Wales within the terms of the law and the Hague Convention, and happy here. She would not exercise her discretion to return the daughter; it would not be in her interests to return. Contact was a matter that could be properly considered by the English courts. Judgment, 24/09/2020, free
- The father appealed from the dismissal of his application under the 1980 Hague Convention. The judge had decided that the child was habitually resident in Australia rather than France at the date of the retention in England and Wales, and thus in her view the Hague Convention did not apply. The Court of Appeal determined that the child had been habitually resident in France, but, since it was an issue in other pending cases, Moylan LJ addressed the issue of principle: whether there was power under the 1980 Convention to return a child to a state other than that in which they had been habitually resident. In Moylan LJ's view, "the 1980 Convention applies whenever the child is habitually resident in a Contracting State, other than the requested state, at the date of the alleged wrongful removal or retention", and "there is power under the 1980 Convention to order that a child be returned to a third state". This question had been expressly considered at the time of the convention's drafting and a proposal that the return should always be to the state of habitual residence had not been adopted. To confine Article 12 as suggested would fail to protect children from the harmful effects of their abduction. While Baker LJ and Phillips LJ agreed as to the child's habitual residence in France, they declined to express an obiter view on the issue of principle. Baker LJ warned of the danger of judges thinking that the degree of integration in a second country had to be equivalent to that enjoyed in the first for a child to acquire habitual residence. Judgment, 18/09/2020, free
- An order had been made for the nine-year-old son to be returned to Russia. The father had arranged for the child to make an application for asylum, and one of the questions to be resolved was now whether this prohibited the enforcement of the return order. Mr Darren Howe QC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, adjudged that the commencement of an asylum application by or on behalf of a child did indeed prohibit the enforcement of a return order made under the Hague Convention 1980. No exception was available under the law even if the court had concluded that the asylum application was a sham and a tactic to delay the return order. He ordered a stay of the return order until 15 days after the tribunal's decision upon the asylum application. But if there were thus to be a significant delay, the issue of contact between mother and child in the meantime would need to be addressed. A further hearing as to this would follow. Judgment, 09/09/2020, free
- The mother appealed from a return order made under the 1980 Hague Convention. She contended that the judge had been wrong to decide that the children were habitually resident in Germany at the date of her wrongful retention of them in England. It was submitted on her behalf that the judge had focused on whether the children had lost their habitual residence in Germany, rather than on the relevant question of whether their residence in England had acquired the requisite degree of integration and stability. In Moylan LJ's view, the appeal had to be allowed. On a proper application of the appropriate test, the children had been habitually resident in England at the date of their retention, and thus the father's application under the 1980 Convention had to be dismissed. Simler LJ and Sir Stephen Richards agreed. Judgment, 25/08/2020, free
- The proceedings concerned a father's application for contact with children aged two and five. The mother opposed contact on the basis that the father had subjected her to domestic and sexual abuse. She now appealed from a case management decision to exclude evidence of coercive and controlling behaviour by the father towards a subsequent partner. Peter Jackson LJ, after considering the approach to be taken to similar fact evidence in civil and family proceedings, and the standard of proof involved, stated that the judge's decision could not stand. The necessary analysis concerning whether the disputed evidence should be admitted had not been carried out, and the judge had been mistaken (as had the district judge) about the stance that had been taken by the court previously. Hickinbottom LJ and David Richards LJ agreed. The appeal was allowed, the evidence reinstated, and the judge's order set aside. The case was reallocated to High Court level with case management and fact-finding hearings to follow. Judgment, 25/08/2020, free
- The father applied under the 1980 Hague Convention for the return of his three-year-old son to Australia. The mother resisted the application on the grounds of habitual residence in England, acquiescence, and a grave risk of physical or psychological harm to the child, or his being in an otherwise intolerable situation, if the court required his return to Australia. Theis J decided that the defence on acquiescence would not have succeeded, but the mother had established that the protective measures put in place would not have been sufficient to reduce the risk to a level that fell below the Article 13(b) threshold. Either way, Theis J had already reached the conclusion that the son's habitual residence at the relevant time had been in this jurisdiction, and thus there had been no breach of Article 3 of the Hague Convention. The father's application was dismissed. Judgment, 12/08/2020, free
- The mother appealed against the judge's refusal to set aside a return order under the 1980 Hague Convention. The mother lived in England and had dual British/Bosnian nationality. The father was a Bosnian national and had always lived in Bosnia. She had returned with the child to England in circumstances which had involved a restraining order being made against the father by the Municipal Court in Sarajevo. The judge had found that the son was habitually resident in Bosnia immediately before his removal, that there had been no consent or acquiescence to his removal, and that the Article 13(b) threshold of grave risk of harm or intolerability had not been crossed. This appeal regarded the latter finding. Moylan LJ found that the Article 13(b) risk was clearly established. The judge had been wrong to discount the effect of the father's breaches of his previous undertakings, and the judge's approach to the mother's mental health had been flawed in a number of respects. It was clear that there would be a grave risk of the son being placed in an intolerable situation if they were to return to Bosnia and be separated. Peter Jackson LJ and Carr LJ agreed. The appeal was allowed and the father's Hague Convention application was dismissed. Judgment, 11/08/2020, free