London High Court in link-up with Gozo courts

A London High Court, hearing a cross-boundary child custody case, yesterday linked up with the Gozo courts through video conferencing to listen to the argumentations made by the child's Gozitan father and English mother.

During the sitting that lasted about two hours, the UK court heard submissions about the 12-year-old boy as a ward of court.

In the UK, any person may, by issuing proceedings, make the High Court guardian of a child within its jurisdiction. No important step in the child's life can then be taken without the court's leave.

The boy's mother last year filed a case in the UK court claiming that the child was being detained in Malta by his father.

On November 29, 2006, an English court ordered the return of the boy to the UK under the responsibility of the Director of Standards in Social Protection (DSSP). But the father claimed he was separated from his English wife by a judgment of the English courts and that the latter courts had issued a residence order in connection with the minor.

The child had come to Malta last July by agreement between the parents, he said.

According to the father, the boy had given him certain information that had led to the father asking the Gozo court to order the child not be returned to England. In July the court upheld his request.

But on December 4, the DSSP asked the Gozo court to recognise and enforce a judgment delivered by the English court that had ordered the boy's return to England. The Gozo court upheld the request and the father resorted to the Court of Appeal claiming that the first court had erroneously interpreted the Council Regulations (EC) that governed such situations.

According to the father, once the Gozo court had authorised the minor to remain in Gozo prior to the English court's judgment, then he could not be held to have abducted his own child.

The DSSP, on its part, contended that the decree by the Gozo court was merely a temporary one and that the mother had not been heard.

The Court of Appeal ruled there was no doubt that the country of habitual residence of the minor was the UK. Thus, the English courts had jurisdiction as to the substance of the case concerning the child.

According to the EC regulations, the provisional and protective measures taken by a member state ceased to apply when the court having substantive jurisdiction had delivered a judgment.

The father's request for the boy to remain in Malta (in terms of the decree delivered by the Gozo court) was therefore inadmissible, the court ruled.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the father's appeal and confirmed the Gozo court's judgment which had ordered the child's return to England within one week.

Lawyers Anglu Farrugia and Angele Formosa are representing the father.