A claim filed by a man that his son had been illegally taken from Spain to live in Malta with his mother was dismissed by the Family Court after it ruled that the mother had acted in the best interests of the child.

Madame Justice Anna Felice delivered this judgment following an application filed by the Department for Standards in Social Protection against the child’s mother.

The department claimed that the mother had violated two international conventions by abducting the child and taking him from his place of habitual residence in Spain to Malta.

The court heard that the child was born in England in 1999 and that his parents had subsequently moved to Spain where they obtained a divorce in 2009. In terms of the divorce settlement the mother was vested with the care and custody of the child while the father had rights of access.

In its judgment the court declared that the international conventions applied to cases when a minor was illegally taken out of the place of his habitual residence and taken to another jurisdiction. It resulted that the mother had informed the Spanish court of her decision to return to Malta and that the father had been given the opportunity to rebut her case but had failed to do so.

The father’s request for the son to be prohibited from leaving Spain was also denied by the Spanish courts. The court therefore concluded that the department had failed to prove that the mother had not been entitled to remove her son from Spain.

It further resulted that the mother had removed her son from Spain because she could not reasonably be expected to live there. She had no home or job there and the father had stopped paying maintenance and school fees for the child. Madame Justice Felice added that she gave importance to the claims of domestic violence made by the wife which had not been rebutted by the husband.

The court therefore dismissed the department’s claims.