The court summarised the principles as to the return of a child to a foreign country without conducting a full investigation of the merits: ‘To take a child from his native land, to remove him to another country where, maybe, his native tongue is not spoken, to divorce him from the social customs and contacts to which he has been accustomed, to interrupt his education in his native land and subject him to a foreign system of education, are all acts (offered here as examples and of course not as a complete catalogue of possible relevant factors) which are likely to be psychologically disturbing to the child, particularly at a time when his family life is also disrupted. If such a case is promptly brought to the attention of a court in this country, the judge may feel that it is in the best interests of the infant that these disturbing factors should be eliminated from his life as speedily as possible. A full investigation of the merits of the case in an English court may be incompatible with achieving this. The judge may well be persuaded that it would be better for the child that those merits should be investigated in a court in his native country.’
Judges:
Lord Justice Buckley
Citations:
[1974] 1 WLR 250
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Approved – Re P (A Minor)(Child Abduction: Non Convention Country) CA 1997
The Hague Convention concepts are not to be applied in a non-Convention case. . .
Approved – Re JA (Child Abduction: Non-Convention Country) CA 1998
The court accepted a submission that ‘the court cannot be satisfied that it is in the best interests of the child to return it to the court of habitual residence in order that that court may resolve the disputed question unless this court is . .
Cited – Re J (A Child), Re (Child returned abroad: Convention Rights); (Custody Rights: Jurisdiction) HL 16-Jun-2005
The parents had married under shariah law. They left the US to return to the father’s home country Saudi Arabia. They parted, and the mother brought their son to England against the father’s wishes and in breach of an agreement. The father sought . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Children
Updated: 15 August 2022; Ref: scu.228370