Source: https://familylawhub.co.uk/default.aspx?i=ce6501
Timestamp: 2019-10-15 19:14:49
Document Index: 7825296

Matched Legal Cases: ['Art 13', 'Art 11', 'Art 13', 'EWCA ', '§11', 'art12', 'art 12', 'art 12']

In brief: A summary return order was made returning the child to Israel in circumstances where the mother (“M”) had not made out that the child would be at grave risk of psychological harm if returned and appropriate undertakings were given by the father (“F”) meaning that the child would remain in M’s care until the Family Court of Jerusalem had dealt with matters.
MK (Applicant)
RP (Respondent)
1. This is an application under the Hague Child Abduction Convention for the summary return to Israel of 1 child, who I shall refer to as D. D was born in April 2012 and is now 6 years old. It is agreed between the parties that, prior to her removal on 29 November 2017, D was habitually resident in Israel. The applicant is D’s father and he seeks the immediate return of D to Israel. The respondent is D’s mother who opposes that application.
2. For the purposes of her opposition to the father’s application, the mother raises two defences. Firstly, that the father consented to the child’s removal; that consent having been included within the agreement reached between the parents when they divorced some 6 years ago. Secondly, the mother argues that a return of D would expose the child to grave risk of psychological harm or otherwise place her in an intolerable position.
‘Intolerable' is a strong word, but when applied to a child must mean ‘a situation which this particular child in these particular circumstances should not be expected to tolerate'. It is, as Art 13(b) makes clear, the return to the requesting state, rather than the enforced removal from the requested state, which must have this effect. Thus the English courts have sought to avoid placing the child in an intolerable situation by extracting undertakings from the applicant as to the conditions in which the child will live when he returns and by relying on the courts of the requesting state to protect him once he is there. In many cases this will be sufficient. But once again, the fact that this will usually be sufficient to avoid the risk does not mean that it will invariably be so. In Hague Convention cases within the European Union, Art 11.4 of the Council Regulation (EC) No 2201/2003 of 27 November 2003 concerning jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in matrimonial matters and in matters of parental responsibility, repealing Regulation (EC) No 1347/2000 (Brussels II Revised) (2003) OJ L 338/1 expressly provides that a court cannot refuse to return a child on the basis of Art 13(b) ‘if it is established that adequate arrangements have been made to secure the protection of the child after his or her return'. Thus it has to be shown that those arrangements will be effective to secure the protection of the child. With the best will in the world, this will not always be the case. No-one intended that an instrument designed to secure the protection of children from the harmful effects of international child abduction should itself be turned into an instrument of harm.’
12. Should I be satisfied that one of the defences relied upon by the mother has been proved to the required standard, I then have a discretion whether or not to order D’s return to Israel. In re M (Children) [2015] EWCA Civ 26, Black LJ as she was then, described at paragraph 71 the factors to be taken into account when exercising discretion as:
“The court has to have regard to other welfare considerations, in so far as it is possible to take a view about them from the limited evidence that will be available as part of the summary proceedings. And importantly, it must give weight to the 1980 Convention considerations. It must at all times be borne in mind that the 1980 Convention only works if, in general, children who have been wrongfully retained or removed from their country of habitual residence are returned and returned promptly. To reiterate what Baroness Hale said in In re M, at para 42, "[the] message should go out to potential abductors that there are no safe havens among Contracting States".
15. The parents are both citizens of Israel. They married when they were both around 19 years of age and shortly thereafter D was born. This was an arranged marriage, as is the tradition within the community in which the parents lived. In her statement to this court, M makes allegations that F was lazy and lacked motivation to secure well-paid employment. She cites this as reason why the marriage failed. F does not accept M’s allegations and says that they married too young and were not compatible, which led to the breakdown of the marriage. Whatever the reason, the marriage did not endure. The parents separated in October 2012 and then divorced.
“Personal status and family law for Jews in Israel provide for parallel jurisdiction of the civil Family Law Courts and the Rabbinical Courts, on certain matters and under certain conditions specified by law (among these: Family Courts Law, 5755-1995; Law of Inheritance, 5725-1965; Law of Jurisdiction of the Rabbinical Courts (Marriage and Divorce), 5713-1953; Spousal Financial Relations Law, 5733-1973).
Thus, even when an agreement or previous ruling contains provisions regarding children, these can be reopened by a court of proper jurisdiction in pursuit of the child's best interests. Any change of circumstance will be evaluated at the given time”.
18. Mr Katzin was asked to consider the terms of the divorce agreement executed by the parties. He described the drafting of this divorce agreement as ‘atrocious’ and is firmly of the view that it cannot have been drafted by a lawyer. The parents agree it was not drafted by lawyer but was written by a Rabbi acting as mediator. In her oral evidence, the mother said that she had not communicated directly with the father since their separation; as such communication is prohibited by the expectations of their community. It was clear from the mother’s evidence, and I so find, that the negotiation that led to this agreement being drafted was an ‘arm’s length’ negotiation in that both the mother and the father relied on others to inform them of the expectations and understanding of the other. The mother was asked if the negotiations were lengthy but her response was “my father spoke with his father and we reached this agreement. It was quite straight-forward”.
20. Following the divorce, it is the father’s complaint that M sought to exclude him from D’s life and did not facilitate the child arrangements that were specified in the agreement. The mother complains that the father did not commit to a regular pattern of time with D and when visits did take place, F would cause distress to D by showing her video recordings on his telephone (the use of such devices being prohibited in their community) and, at least on 1 occasion, by slapping D to the face. F issued proceedings before the Family Court of Jerusalem in June 2016. M sought to defend those proceedings on the basis that the Family Court did not have jurisdiction. It appears that she argued that the agreement reached between the parties gave exclusive jurisdiction to the Rabbinical Court. The Family Court rejected that argument.
21. At the time of D’s removal from Israel in November 2017, the Family Court was actively engaged with D and the parents in monitoring the father’s visits with D, that were supervised due to the allegations made by the mother. It is right to record that the social worker’s reports of those visits paint a positive picture of the father’s contact with his daughter.
22. In June 2015, some 20 months following her separation from the father, the mother married her current husband. He was living in Israel undertaking a course of study but is a British citizen. It was the mother’s evidence that during the matchmaking process with her new husband, she formed the desire to relocate to England and she told me that she and her husband had an explicit agreement that they would move to England after they had been together for 2 years. The mother accepts that D’s father was never informed of this proposal.
23. On 22 November 2017, the mother made an application to the Rabbinical Court seeking an order, similar to a declaration, that the mother had authority to remove D permanently from Israel. The Application refers to the divorce agreement that, the mother argues, provides her with permission to relocate away from Israel without any notice being provided to the father. Indeed, during my hearing of limited oral evidence, it was put to the father on behalf of the mother that the agreement provides, in the event of the mother remarrying a man who lived abroad, that the mother could leave Israel with D without having agreed arrangements for D to see the father, as the agreement permitted such arrangements to be made following the mother’s departure.
24. It is said that this agreement was reached to enable the mother to remarry without fear that the father’s desire to have an ongoing relationship with D would confine both D and the mother to their country of origin, thereby impeding her ability to secure a new spouse. It was the mother’s evidence that she ‘bought’ this freedom by agreeing with the father than she would not seek spousal maintenance from him and by agreeing that he would not be responsible for D’s marriage costs, as would be traditional in their community. It was the mother’s evidence that the father was happy to agree to the mother having permission to relocate from Israel on the basis of these financial incentives.
25. On 28 November 2017, the Rabbinical Court made an order determining that there was no obstacle to the mother removing D from Israel. It is the father’s case that he was not served with notice of the mother’s application. He further argues that the Rabbinical Court had no jurisdiction to grant such an order and that its terms were not, and are not, binding upon him.
28. When he discovered that the mother had removed D to England, the father made an application to the Rabbinical Court challenging the jurisdiction of that court, and of the single Rabbi, to make a declaration that there was no obstacle to the mother’s removal of D from the jurisdiction. On 19 December 2017, the Rabbinical Court granted a stay of its order, although the utility of that stay was limited given that D had already been removed from Israel. The mother applied for the stay to be lifted and the Rabbinical Court ordered the father to file a response to that application. The father did not engage further with the Rabbinical court but made an application to the Family Court of Jerusalem. That court sought clarification from the father as to whether he was to make an application to the central authority for D’s return to Israel pursuant to the terms of the Hague Convention. The father then made that application on 25 December 2017. He also made a formal complaint about the conduct of the Rabbi in the Rabbinical Court who made the order declaring that the mother was at liberty to remove D from Israel, a complaint that was upheld.
30. It was not until 31 January 2018 that the father’s application pursuant to the 1980 Hague convention was submitted to the International Child Abduction and Contact Unit by the Israeli Ministry of Justice.
32. I heard oral evidence by video link from Mr Katzin, as to the effect of the divorce agreement under the law of Israel. Mr Katzin also provided detailed written and oral evidence concerning the jurisdiction of, and the interplay between, the Rabbinical Court and the Family Court of Israel. Despite the summary nature of these proceedings, I permitted some limited oral evidence from both parents regarding their intentions at the time the divorce agreement was drafted and concerning the mother’s challenge to the father’s reliability in providing financial support for her, which it was submitted was relevant to the undertakings offered by the father. I heard the evidence of the father by video link and the mother gave her oral evidence from the witness box in court.
The Mother’s Case asserting Consent for Relocation
33. As set out above, the mother accepts that she did not inform the father that she was to remove D from Israel. It is the mother’s case that her petition to the Rabbinical Court dated 22 November 2017 was enough notice to the father. The mother disputes the father’s assertion that he was not served with the application.
34. In her statement the mother describes, following the receipt of the draft divorce agreement, that both she and the father suggested amendments to the terms of the agreement. The father denies this to be the case but given the evidence I have heard from Mr Katzin, and for the reasons I will describe, whether or not amendments were suggested does not now assist me with determining the meaning of the agreement or the intentions of the parties at the time. It is the mother’s case, as set out in her statement, that the “permission agreed for my relocation included D as she was in my sole care”. At §11 of her statement, the mother states “this clause was inserted in the divorce agreement to avoid any conflict upon my remarriage, which was extremely likely given my young age at separation. At the time when the agreement was entered into, it was made very clear to both the father and I that the insertion of this clause in the agreement meant that there was no bar to D’s relocation abroad in the event that I remarried. As I was now divorced, the likelihood of finding a partner abroad increased as most divorcees like me marry a foreign national as there can be stigma within the community in Israel for a divorced woman as divorce is still quite rare”.
35. Later in her statement, the mother says “I knew I had been given permission by the Rabbinical Court to move to the UK. Nevertheless, I requested clarification from the Rabbinical Court, as I wanted to ensure that everything was in place for my relocation and invite the father to make arrangements for contact. As I did not have any direct contact with the father, I was fully aware that the Rabbinical Court would serve the father with the request”.
“Re: Request to move abroad pursuant to art12B of the agreement.
I got married for the 2nd time to a husband who is from another country and we put a condition pursuant to art 12b in the Agreement that after 2 years we will move to live abroad with my daughter (I got married in the month of Tammuz Tash’a).
I would like to implement and enforce the agreement art 12b”.
37. The petition does not provide information as to where the mother was proposing to move with D or when such a move was to take place. The mother says that she relied upon the father to respond to her petition to the Rabbinical Court and discussions could then have taken place. Mr Jarman put to the mother that she had, from 2016, known the details of the father’s lawyers and known where father was residing and that she had ample opportunity to notify the father of her planned move. The mother accepted that she had contact details for the father but she said that she was advised not to inform him of her plans.
38. Despite describing in her statement that she made her application to the Rabbinical Court “to ensure that everything was in place and invite the father to make arrangements for contact” there is no evidence that the mother sought the father’s views as to how contact between him and D could be maintained following D’s departure from the jurisdiction. As I have already explained, it was not until the Family Court made enquiries as to why the mother had not presented D for contact with the father that the mother’s lawyers reported that D had left the jurisdiction. It was then necessary for the father to issue these proceedings, and for a location order to be made, before any communications were permitted between father and daughter.
39. It is clear from this short summary that the mother does not allege that the father gave express consent to D’s relocation at any time following the drafting of the divorce agreement. The mother’s case concerning consent relies entirely on the terms of the agreement that, she says, was reached at the time of the divorce in 2013.
40. I have before me 3 different translations of a paragraph of the agreement that the mother interprets as the father’s grant of consent to her relocation with D. The translation provide on behalf of the father reads as follows:
“When one of the girl’s parents emigrates abroad as a result of marriage and the like, the other party shall cooperate totally to arrange all necessary matters including the visits to the satisfaction of the two parents and if they emigrate for personal reasons, they cannot force the other side to agree to cooperate and in addition they can even detain them.”
“If one of the parents has moved abroad as a result of marriage and such, the other party shall fully cooperate and regulate all matters including visitation schedule to the satisfaction of both parents. And if they have emigrated due to personal reasons, they are not able to force the other party to cooperation, but it has the power to hold them back”.
“If one of the parents emigrates abroad because of marriage or such, the other will fully cooperate to set out all the necessary issues including the issues of access to the satisfaction of both parents and if they emigrate for personal reasons they cannot make the other party agree to cooperate and not only that they can prevent”.
44. The concept of guardianship was, in Mr Katzin’s opinion, an important one given the mother’s reliance on the declaration of the Rabbinical Court that there was no obstacle to D’s removal from the jurisdiction. Mr Katzin described that the Rabbinical Court had no jurisdiction concerning guardianship, as its jurisdiction was limited to matters ancillary to a divorce and was limited to registering agreements made at the time of the divorce.
47. If a divorce agreement required enforcement, it was Mr Katzin’s opinion that this could be undertaken by an enforcement office available to both the Rabbinical and Family Courts, although the Family Court is generally responsible for enforcing its own orders.
48. Concerning agreements regarding children, it was Mr Katzin’s evidence that, in theory, such agreements can be enforced by the enforcement office, although in practice this does not occur. Importantly, it was Mr Katzin’s evidence that once the Rabbinical Court “had finished its job by certifying the agreement, it does not have continuing jurisdiction to deal with matters”.
50. It was Mr Katzin’s firm opinion that the Rabbinical Court has no jurisdiction to authorize the removal of a child from the jurisdiction of Israel, as that is a matter of Guardianship and the Family Court retains exclusive jurisdiction to decide such matters. It was also his opinion that any question concerning the interpretation of the divorce agreement should also be determined by the Family Court, as the ‘job’ of the Rabbinical Court is completed when it registers the agreement at the time of the divorce. If Mr Katzin’s opinion is accurate, it matters not whether F was or was not served with notice of those proceedings, as the mother is then unable to rely on the decision of the Rabbinical Court on 28 November 2017 as providing her with authority to remove D from Israel that would render and otherwise wrongful removal lawful.
51. During her cross-examination of Mr Katzin, Ms Papazian sought to challenge Mr Kitzan’s opinions concerning jurisdiction. However, Mr Katzin was clear in his evidence that the Rabbinical Court had no jurisdiction to grant the mother permission to leave Israel with D or to interpret the terms of the divorce agreement. In her closing submissions, Ms Papazian made an application to adjourn the hearing to enable the mother to produce alternative expert evidence, as she believed Mr Kitzan’s evidence concerning the Rabbinical Court was wrong.
53. It was Ms Papazian’s submission that Mr Katzin’s oral evidence concerning the Rabbinical Court lacked jurisdiction to interpret the divorce agreement, was new evidence. I do not accept that this was new information. In his report, at paragraph 16, Mr Katzin says “a petition of that type would not be in that tribunal's jurisdiction but rather in the jurisdiction of the Family Law Court”. Mr Katzin has the advantage of being able to read the mother’s hand-written petition to the court as it was drafted in Hebrew. He gave his opinion concerning the jurisdiction of the Rabbinical Court to entertain the mother’s application in his report dated 30 May 2018. These are summary proceedings that have already been in being for over 3 months. The mother had the opportunity between the receipt of Mr Katzin's report on 30 May and the commencement of this hearing on 6 June to make an application for alternative expert evidence. I do not accept that Mr Katzin gave wholly new information in his oral evidence that would justify an adjournment of this hearing. The mother’s application to adjourn to obtain alternative expert opinion is, therefore, dismissed.
54. Further, I unhesitatingly agree with Mr Katzin that this divorce agreement has been very poorly drafted. That its meaning is not clear to 2 translators commissioned for these proceedings or to an experienced bilingual Israeli family lawyer, is in my judgment a significant hindrance to the mother in proving to the required standard that this agreement provided her with the clear and unambiguous consent to relocation that she asserts had been agreed. When answering questions from Mr Jarman, Mr Katzin said “the agreement clearly does deal with issues of visitation but the relocation issue is totally ambiguous and it is not at all clear if the agreement is dealing with this”.
55. I have carefully considered the 3 different translations provided of the divorce agreement. Given that Mr Katzin is an experienced bilingual family lawyer well placed to interpret and explain the meaning of the agreement, I prefer the translation that he provided during his oral evidence. I accept Mr Kitzan’s evidence and conclude that the wording of the agreement itself does not record an express agreement by the father to D’s relocation with the mother.
56. The mother relies upon other terms of the agreement, providing her with sole custody of D, as evidence that the agreement provided consent for her relocation with D as, she says, she would not leave D behind should she remarry a man who lived abroad. The difficulty with that argument is the term 12b applies to either parent. It is not specific to the arrangements that apply should the mother seek to relocate. It was Mr Jarman’s submission that the agreement simply records the basis for, and an expectation of, a negotiation concerning the regulation “all the necessary issues including the issues of access to the satisfaction of both parents” should either parent marry a foreign spouse. I accept that submission and so find.
58. In his written evidence, the father states, “I do not accept that, as sole custody was given to the mother, this meant that D would automatically move abroad if the mother was doing so. This is not what I agreed to and would not make sense in the light of the significant contact I was to have as per the agreement”. The father says that it was his understanding that if either parent was to move abroad, the other person had to fully cooperate in discussing arrangements for D. The father goes onto describe that the mother would need to apply to the court, so there could be careful examination of her proposals for D if she wished to move abroad.
59. Given that this was an ‘arm’s length’ negotiation facilitated by a mediator, M’s knowledge of what was, or was not, understood and agreed by the father does not come from her own contact with him at the time the agreement was drawn. In his oral evidence, the father accepted that he knew the mother would remarry and said, from the moment of the divorce, she was free to remarry whomever she wanted. Ms Papazian put to him a document found within the bundle that the mother was free to remarry any man, other than a Cohen, when D reached the age of 24 months. The father’s response was that he did not recall D reaching the age of 24 months as being discussed during the negotiations. When the mother gave her oral evidence, she said that this was a term of Jewish law and not a matter that was included within the agreement.
60. The father accepted that the mother waived her right to financial support following the divorce but it was the father’s evidence that she did this as she wanted to divorce quickly. He said he had not agreed for D to be taken abroad if the mother did remarry. In his oral evidence, the father said it was his expectation, if the mother was to remarry and move abroad, that she should come and sort out dates when he would see D and not “just escape in the middle of the night”. He said his intention was that there “would be prior notice and she couldn’t just leave without notice”.
61. The father’s answers were interpreted by Ms Papazian as him giving consent to a future relocation subject to his visits with D being agreed. I do not agree that this is what the father was communicating. I formed the impression that the father would have considered the mother’s proposals for a move abroad and, subject to suitable visitation being agreed, he may have then agreed to relocation. This is the exercise that any non-resident parent has to undertake when faced with a relocation desire by the resident parent. I found the father’s answers to these questions to be entirely reasonable and child focused.
62. I have been invited to question the father’s credibility as a witness. When he was asked about his payments of child maintenance, he said that he had always made the child support payments required of him. I permitted the mother to introduce in evidence some schedules that, she says, demonstrate that the father had not always made every payment and that arrears had accrued. In her oral evidence, the mother accepted that the father had made child support payments through a government agency, so it was not then open to the father to pay the mother independently when this agency was involved.
63. In October 2017, the mother made an application to the family court in Jerusalem for an increase in the father’s child support payments. She sought an increase from 1250 shekels a month to 5500 shekels a month. This application was heard less than 4 weeks before the mother left Israel with D. She did not inform the court or the father that she was intending to leave. When asked why not, the mother again said she was advised against it. The court increased the payment to 1800 shekels per month but it is clear from the documentation that, when the mother left the jurisdiction, the father stopped paying.
64. Prior to the mother’s departure, it appears there were no arrears of child maintenance. Following the departure, the arrears were significant and bailiffs became involved. The father has now cleared the arrears but his involvement with the bailiffs resulted in him being barred from leaving Israel, which is the reason why he gave his evidence at this hearing by video link.
65. It follows that the father’s evidence that he had always paid child support was inaccurate, at least from the time that the mother removed D from Israel. Aside from this one misleading answer, I found the father presented as a witness who was doing his best to assist the court and who, despite his desperation to see his daughter, did not seek to exaggerate or raise unnecessary or inflated complaints against the mother.
67. The mother was asked by Mr Jarman why she had not contacted a named Rabbi, as provided at paragraph B6 of the agreement, to inform the father of her wish to relocate and to seek to discuss her proposals. The mother’s reply was “we had agreed to appoint [the named Rabbi] but not about my daughter”. When challenged by Mr Jarman, the mother then said that they were using the Rabbi, who was an uncle of the father, until she was to get married to her new husband. She also said that the agreement to use the rabbi only lasted until the father ‘disappeared for a year’.
68. I found these answers concerning as the agreement states that the named Rabbi was to be their contact person to whom all messages were to be sent regarding “future planning”. The same term of the agreement also states “the contact person shall focus on the benefit of the child”, so the mother’s answer that the named Rabbi was not for use when making arrangements for D was untruthful.
69. Once the mother had left the jurisdiction, she accepts that she did not tell the father she had moved and he discovered this information following his application to the family court; an application he issued on 5 December 2017. The mother’s lawyer responded to the father’s application by informing the court that the mother was now in London. The Lawyer’s reply did not provide an address where the mother was residing. In a further letter to the court, dated 16 December 2017, the mother provides her phone number but the letter seeks permission to withhold the address where she is living with D as “she is afraid that the Respondent will go there and will act violently towards [her] and also towards the minor, as he did in the past”.
71. It was Ms Papazian’s submission that the mother’s conduct throughout was consistent with that to be expected of a mother who believed that she had the consent of the father to relocate and, if not, the valid permission of the Rabbinical court. I do not agree. As submitted by Mr Jarman, the mother chose to rely on the divorce agreement when she believed it suited her and then ignored it at times when it did not. The mother gave no credible reason for not allowing D to see her father on the day before the mother removed her from Israel. I do not have enough information to find one way or the other whether D had a serious eye infection but as it was not so serious to prevent D flying from Israel to London on a flight that left Israel at 05.20 the following morning, and was an indirect flight via Zurich. I do not accept that D’s illness was an adequate reason to prevent the contact taking place, no matter what medication the doctor may have prescribed. If a mother believed she had the freely-given consent of the father, allowing the child to say goodbye to the father, particularly given the frequent contact that had taken place, would be behaviour much more consistent with the belief that there was no impediment to departure.
73. I have considered the mother’s application to the Rabbinical Court on 22 November 2017. If it was the mother’s belief that she had valid consent to leave and issued her application for confirmation of that belief and, as she says in her statement, to engage the father in discussions, her failure to notify the father, either through her sister or the appointed contact Rabbi under the agreement or the father’s lawyer who continued to act for him in the proceedings before the Family Court is, in my judgment behaviour inconsistent with the mother’s evidence that she wished to engage the father in discussions about child arrangements post departure.
74. In my judgment, the mother’s actions in booking a flight to leave as soon as she was notified of the decision of the Rabbinical Court, without leaving any time for the father’s consideration of that decision is, again, behaviour more consistent with knowledge that the father had not clearly and unequivocally agreed to his daughter leaving the jurisdiction and would attempt to prevent the mother’s departure if he learned of her intentions.
75. I remind myself that the father did not, at the time of his application to the family court on 5 December 2017 know of the 28 November 2017 decision of the Rabbinical court and this information was not shared by anyone on behalf of the mother until her lawyer responded to the father’s application and informed the Family Court that the mother had relocated to London.
76. When taking the mother’s actions prior to the removal, the day before the removal and since the removal all into account, I have come to the conclusion, on the balance of probabilities, that there is no evidence upon which I could conclude that there had been a clear and unequivocal consent given by the father for D’s relocation. The father’s pursuit of contact through the Family Court of Jerusalem, and his commitment to supervised contact, is in my judgment, behaviour consistent with his desire to maintain a close relationship with his child and I accept his oral evidence that at no time in the negotiations that led to the drafting of the divorce agreement did he agree to D’s removal from Israel without prior notice and agreement by him.
77. Having considered all the evidence presented I find that the mother has not satisfied the burden upon her of proving, on the balance of probabilities, that the father gave clear and unequivocal consent to D’s relocation from Israel. On the contrary, I find for the reasons given that the father has never given consent for D to be removed from the jurisdiction of Israel.
78. I accept the evidence of Mr Katzin and find that the order granted by the Rabbinical Court on 28 November 2017 is not a valid permission by a court of competent jurisdiction for D’s removal from Israel by the mother.
The Mother’s Article 13(b) Defence
80. Ms Papazian, in her closing submissions, framed the mother’s article 13(b) defence on the following way:
(b) Separation from the mother’s husband will cause harm to D as he cannot leave London due to his employment and could only travel from time to time;
(c) The mother’s return to Israel would lead her to lose her current housing benefit payments which would result in the financial burden on her husband increasing leading to him being unable to afford frequent visits to Israel;
(d) The mother’s savings, and those of her husband, have been depleted by legal costs during the mother’s attempts to obtain the father’s release from the current restriction on him travelling abroad;
(f) Father has made no offer to fund the mother’s travel costs to Israel and this is not a cost that the mother can afford, presumably leaving the risk that D would have to travel alone and then reside with a carer unfamiliar to her;
81. At paragraph 39 of her statement, the mother that she would return to the home of her parents, if D was ordered to be returned to Israel. The mother does not say that she could not reside with D at her parents’ home due to its use as a day nursery. Even if is that use during the daytime, it would not in my judgment prevent accommodation being provided outside of business hours.
82. The mother’s allegations, that D would be placed in an intolerable situation, arise largely from the practical arrangements to be put in place for the mother and D should a return be ordered. I recognize that separation from the mother’s husband after 3 years of marriage will be difficult but I do not accept that such a separation would place D in an intolerable situation or cause her psychological harm. She would be in the care of her mother who can keep D reminded of the husband and the mother can facilitate telephone contact with her husband. The mother’s oral evidence to me included references to her leaving Israel for a better life and for the husband to work in his father’s diamond business. I have been provided with no explanation for why family support would not be available to the husband to visit Israel to visit at times when he is able. I also take into account that the mother received from the father, on 14 May 2018 arrears of child maintenance that amounted to some £3600. I have been told that some funds have been used by the mother for legal proceedings in Israel but given the relatively small cost of flight to Israel of £365, this being the cost of a flight that was booked at very short notice when the mother wrongfully removed D on 29 November 2017, I am not satisfied that the mother’s husband would not be able to visit Israel during the period of any Israeli court proceedings that might following D’s return.
83. I have been provided with a copy of the flight booking used by the mother to bring D to London on 29 November 2018. The flight information provided clearly identifies that the return part of the flight, that is currently booked as occurring on 1 November 2018 as ‘open’. In his closing submissions Mr Jarman did not accept the mother’s explanation through Ms Papazian that this flight could not be changed. Given that no evidence was heard on this issue, I am unable to make a determination but there is, on the face of the document at least, flights available to D, the mother and her husband. It may be that the father would improve his offer to fund the mother’s flight in addition to D’s flight were I to order D’s return to Israel, should the mother’s assertion that these flights cannot be changed prove to be correct.
84. When I heard oral evidence from Mr Katzin, it was his opinion that the Family Court of Jerusalem is able to expedite proceedings in appropriate circumstance. He said that the mother would need to file an application with the court to relocate and the father would have 30 days to response, unless a shorter period was order by the court. Mr Katzin said that as there are ongoing proceedings in the Family Court, if reasons are given for why the application should be expedited, the Court would usually provide that expedition. I accept Mr Katzin’s evidence.
(b) Not to support any proceedings in Israel (whether civil or criminal) for the punishment of the mother in respect of the D’s wrongful removal to England;
(d) Not to separate the D from the mother’s care and control save for agreed periods of contact until the first inter partes hearing in Israel;
89. Given that I find that the defences relied upon the mother are not proved, I order that D is to be returned to Israel. In the closing submissions on behalf of the mother, a generous interpretation of word ‘forthwith’ was requested to enable any return to take place after D has finished school on 12 July 2018. I remind myself that the father has not now seen his daughter for 7 months. I am told the school term in Israel has already ended so D would not be attending school immediately in Jerusalem if she was returned within days rather than the 5 week delay requested by the mother. I recognize that the end of summer term is an enjoyable time for a child of D’s age but I have to balance whatever disappointment she may feel by missing end of term activities against the desire of the father to see his daughter, my findings that D was wrongfully removed by the mother and my duty under the convention to make an order providing for the child’s return ‘forthwith’, which to my mind means immediately and without further delay, and I will so order.
Judgment, published: 14/06/2018