Court Returns Two-Year-Old to Land of Birth When Parents’ Marriage Collapses

For a UK court to have jurisdiction over a family law case, it is necessary to show that at least one party to it has habitual residence in the UK. In a recent case, an Israeli woman divorcing her Israeli husband sought a declaration that their two-year-old daughter was habitually resident in the UK so that the UK Family Court could deal with the hearings regarding the child’s welfare.

The Court refused the application and accepted that the child should be removed to Israel in accordance with the father’s wishes. He had previously consented to the child coming to the UK with her mother but then sought an order under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction 1980 to have her returned to Israel.

The couple had moved from Israel to the UK in an apparent attempt to salvage their marriage as part of a plan for a ‘fresh start’. The mother alleged that the marriage failed because of physical and emotional abuse by her husband, whom she characterised as ‘dangerous and violent’. However, evidence was produced that she had been advised to make false allegations about her husband to mislead the Rabbinical court, and there was a marked lack of evidence for the alleged behaviour or the mother having taken earlier action with regard to it. In addition, the rather short period between the couple’s arrival in the UK and the final breakdown of their marriage was not regarded as ‘a picture of stable integration into family and social life’.

In a long judgment (25 pages), the judge ruled that the child was habitually resident in Israel, not the UK, and should be returned there.