Source: http://www.jordanpublishing.co.uk/practice-areas/family/news_and_comment/re-ed-2014-ewhc-2731-fam
Timestamp: 2017-06-23 13:44:36
Document Index: 332768097

Matched Legal Cases: ['Art 15', 'Art 15', 'Art 15', 'Art 15', 'Art 15', 'UKSC ', 'UKSC ']

Home › Practice Areas › Family Law › News & Comment › Re ED [2014] EWHC 2731 (Fam)
(Family Division, Baker J, 31 July 2014)[The judicially approved judgment and accompanying headnote has now published in Family Law Reports [2015] 2 FLR 1019]
Abduction – Art 15,
BIIR – Child retained in Poland
– Hague Convention return order refused – Mother refused to participate in
English proceedings – Whether the requirements of Art 15 had been satisfied
that proceedings in relation to the child should be transferred to the Polish
court pursuant to Art 15, BIIR.
between the English father and Polish mother ended before the child was born.
The mother was granted permission to take the child to Poland on
holiday on the basis of an undertaking that she would return the child.
However, upon the mother’s arrival in Poland she applied for a custody
order and notified the English court that she did not intend to return. The father applied for
a return order pursuant to the Hague
Convention and BIIR. In Poland
the application under the Hague
Convention was dismissed as was his appeal. Instead the father applied to the
English court seeking an order committing the mother for contempt of court, an
order for parental responsibility and a contact order. The proceedings were
transferred to the High Court where the preliminary issue of jurisdiction
arose. It was held that the
English court had jurisdiction to hear the father’s application but the
question arose of whether the court should exercise its power under Art 15 of
BIIR to transfer the case to Poland.
It was accepted by all parties that the first question of whether the child had
a particular connection with that country was satisfied as he was a Polish
citizen, his mother was Polish and he had lived there for the past 2 ½ years. The application was allowed. The court had to adopt a
pragmatic approach. In this instance, the Polish court was manifestly better
placed to hear the father’s application. In deciding whether a transfer the
jurisdiction to the Polish courts was in the child’s best interests it was a
relevant consideration that the child had been wrongfully retained there. In
circumstances where the reality was that whatever the views of the English
court regarding the retention of the child in Poland, the child would not be
returned, then the child’s best interest required a pragmatic approach. As the
mother would not participate in the English proceedings they had to be
transferred to the Polish court. All three questions arising under Art 15 had
to be answered in the affirmative.
THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE BAKER : Introduction and background
[2] E’s father is English and was born in 1981. Her mother is Polish and was born in 1985. The parties were in a relationship for a short period during which time the mother became pregnant but, before E was born, the relationship broke down. There were allegations of domestic violence and, shortly before E’s birth, the father was made the subject of a restraining order by the magistrates. He asserts that it was the mother, rather than he, who was responsible for instigating arguments and was violent towards him. [3] After E’s birth, the mother registered the baby in her name only. As a result, the father does not have parental responsibility for the child. Thereafter, his contact with E was infrequent. On 16th April 2012, he filed an application in the county court seeking a parental responsibility order and a prohibited steps order preventing the mother from removing E from the jurisdiction. In his notice of application, the father stated that the mother had indicated that she might return to Poland with the baby. On the same day, without giving notice to the mother, the father appeared in person before District Judge Mildred who made an order forbidding the mother from removing E from the jurisdiction until further order and adjourned the matter for further consideration on 27th April.
[5] It seems, however, that by the time of the hearing on 3rd May, the father had decided against dropping the proceedings as he had indicated he would do in the email of 30th April. The hearing duly went ahead before District Judge Dancey. The father again appeared in person and the mother was represented by her solicitor. At the hearing, the mother gave oral evidence to the effect that, if she were permitted to take the child to Poland for a visit between 14th May 2012 and 16th July 2012, she would return E to this jurisdiction at the conclusion of the visit. On the basis of that evidence, the father withdrew his objections to the temporary removal of E to Poland. [6] At the conclusion of the hearing on 3rd May, the district judge made an order which included
[7] I note that the formal undertaking containing the mother’s promise to return E to the jurisdiction on 16th July stipulated that she would be bound by this promise until E was returned to the jurisdiction. [8] On 7th May, the father sent a further email to the court in the following terms:
[9] One important question at the hearing before me was whether this email was intended as an application to withdraw the whole proceedings or merely to vacate the hearing on 3rd August. On his behalf Mr Devereux submitted that this was simply a request that the hearing on 3rd August should not go ahead. Mr Devereux submitted that this email, and its predecessor sent on 30th April quoted above, are indicative of the father’s inner turmoil and uncertainty as to the best way to proceed. The father had seen how the proceedings were affecting the mother and was concerned that her feelings would be transmitted to E. He was determined, however, that he should not be excluded from E’s life. [10] The father says that on 8th May, the day after sending the second email, he telephoned the court office and indicated that he had changed his mind and did not want the hearing on 3rd August to be vacated. So far as I can see, however, there is no record of such a phone call on the court file. [11] On 14th May, the mother flew to Poland with E. [12] The email of 7th May was put before District Judge Dancey who made an order on 18th May in which, having recited that he had considered the papers and in particular the email dated 7th May “seeking to withdraw the proceedings”, he ordered that “permission is given for the applicant father’s application for prohibited steps and parental responsibility orders to be withdrawn”. He further discharged the various directions made in the order of 3rd May and vacated the hearing on 3rd August. The order concluded by recording: “this is a final order”. The district judge did not, however, discharge the paragraph of the order prohibiting the mother from applying for a passport for herself or E while she was away, nor did he discharge the mother’s undertaking to return E to this jurisdiction. [13] On 28th May, the father sent a further email to the court in the following terms:
[15] Mr Devereux relies on the terms of this endorsement as indicating that District Judge Dancey interpreted the father’s email of 28th May as an application to set aside the order of 18th May, as opposed to a fresh application. [16] On 29th May, an application was made by an attorney acting for the mother to a court in Poland seeking orders in respect of E, including the equivalent of a residence order. In her application, the mother asserted inter alia that her undertaking to return E to this jurisdiction had been induced by fear. She further asserted that, when she removed E to Poland on 14th May, she had the intention of staying in that country permanently. [17] On 26th June, a notice of hearing was sent out listing the application to set aside for hearing on 6th July. On 3rd July, however, the father sent a further email to the court requesting that this hearing be adjourned because the mother was not due back from Poland until 16th July. The hard copy of this email on the court file has been endorsed by District Judge Dancey with the following comment:
[22] Mr. Devereux’s principal submission is that the proceedings launched by the father on 16th April 2012 were ongoing at the date of E’s removal from the jurisdiction. Although the father sent an email to the court on 7th May which was interpreted by the court as an application to withdraw his application, Mr Devereux relies on the father’s assertion in his email dated 28th May that he had telephoned the court on 8th May to rescind his application to withdraw made by email the previous day. It is plain from his endorsement on the internal memo that District Judge Dancey regarded the email of 28th May as an application to set aside the order of 7th May. Mr Devereux therefore submits that the proceedings initiated by the application of 16th April are extant. As a result, this court has jurisdiction because those proceedings were started before any proceedings in Poland at a time when E was habitually resident in this country. As a result, this court has jurisdiction under Article 8 of Brussels II Revised, which provides that the courts of a member state of the European Union have jurisdiction in matters of parental responsibility over a child who was habitually resident in that member state at the time the court was seised. [23] In the alternative, if the court were to conclude that the proper interpretation of the history of emails and orders as set out above is that the proceedings came to an end as a result of the father’s email of 7th May, Mr Devereux submits that this court nonetheless has jurisdiction in respect of E for one of two alternative reasons. [24] First, Mr Devereux submits that, applying the legal principles concerning habitual residence as clarified by the European Court of Justice in Mercredi v Chaffe (Case C-497/10) [2011] FLR 1293 and the Supreme Court in A v A and another (Children: Habitual Residence) (Reunite International Child Abduction Centre and others intervening) [2013] UKSC 60, [2014] 1 AC 1, E had not lost her habitual residence in this country, or alternatively had not acquired a habitual residence in Poland, between her departure from this country on 14th May, and the father’s email to the county court on 28th May fourteen days later in which he sought to revive (or alternatively reapply) for orders in respect of E. Mr Devereux relies in particular upon the summary of the law concerning habitual residence set out by Baroness Hale of Richmond at paragraph 54 of the decision in A v A and in particular the following observations.
[29] In Re I (A Child) (Contact Application: Jurisdiction) (Centre for Family Law and Practice and Another intervening) [2009] UKSC 10, [2010] 1 AC 31, Baroness Hale observed at paragraph 34 that the father in that case “gave an undertaking to the court to return the child to the jurisdiction when called upon to do so. The object of the proceedings was to enable him to take the child to live in Pakistan and thus lawfully to establish a habitual residence outside the jurisdiction. Yet at the same time he was undertaking to bring the child back when required by the court to do so. This inevitably involved accepting the court’s jurisdiction to make an order in relation, not only to him, but to the child.”
[30] Thus the giving of undertaking to return a child to the jurisdiction amounts to an express and unequivocal acceptance of jurisdiction. Discussion and conclusion as to jurisdiction
[31] Of the three bases on which Mr. Devereux asserts that this court has jurisdiction, two are dependent on issues of fact. The first basis – that the original proceedings have at all times been extant – turns on the father’s intention in writing the email of 7th May and on his assertion that he telephoned the court office on the following day and withdrew the email. Neither the intention nor the assertion has been subjected to any detailed scrutiny by the court. The second basis – that E’s habitual residence had not changed prior to 28th May so that the court had jurisdiction to entertain a fresh application by the father, if that is the proper interpretation of his email of that date – turns on the facts surrounding the mother’s move to Poland on which only the father has so far set out evidence and submissions. [32] The third basis, however, seems to me to be incontrovertible. The mother gave an undertaking to the court to return E to this country by 16th July 2012. The permission given to her to remove E to Poland was conditional upon that undertaking. [33] The undertaking given by the father in Re I was to return the child whenever requested to do so by the court. That open-ended undertaking was interpreted as amounting to an unequivocal acceptance of jurisdiction. The undertaking in the present case was not open-ended but rather time-limited in the sense that the mother was obliged to return E by a fixed date. It seems to me that this is a distinction without a difference. In each case, the parent removing the child was obliged to return the child as directed by the court. Whenever a child is removed on the basis of an undertaking to return the child, that undertaking amounts to an express and unequivocal acceptance that the court to which the undertaking is given retains jurisdiction in matters of parental responsibility concerning the child until such time as the undertaking is fulfilled or discharged. On any view, the undertaking, and the concomitant unequivocal acceptance of jurisdiction, remained in effect as at 28th May 2012. [34] As for the other elements of Article 12.3, E’s father remained habitually resident in this country at 28th May 2012. E was, and is, herself a national of this country. Plainly therefore, she had, and has, a substantial connection with this country within the meaning of Article 12.3. Furthermore, it was at that date plainly in E’s best interests for the court to which the undertaking to return had been given to have jurisdiction in relation to matters of parental responsibility. Accordingly, if the proper interpretation of the father’s email of 28th May 2012 is that it was a fresh application under s.8 of the Children Act, the county court had jurisdiction to entertain the application under Article 12.3, even if E had by that date ceased to be habitually resident in this country.
[35] The current application is brought in the proceedings started in 2012. It follows, therefore that this court has jurisdiction to hear the application under Article 12.3. Having reached a clear conclusion that the court has jurisdiction on that basis, I find it unnecessary to embark on the detailed factual enquiry required to determine whether either of the other bases for jurisdiction are made out. [36] I therefore declare that this court has jurisdiction to make an order for parental responsibility and a child arrangements order.