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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Family Division) Decisions >> LN (A Child) (Without Notice Application for Summary Return) [2016] EWHC 1033 (Fam) (29 April 2016) URL: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/1033.html Cite as: [2016] EWHC 1033 (Fam) |
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FAMILY DIVISION
B e f o r e :
(sitting in public)
Re: LN (a child) (without notice application for summary return)
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Re: LN (a child) (without notice application for summary return) |
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THE RESPONDENTS did not appear and were not represented.
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Crown Copyright ©
MR JUSTICE HOLMAN:
"If a decision is made to return the child it must be because it is in his best interests to do so, not because the welfare principle has been superseded by some other consideration."
I ask rhetorically, how I can possibly form a judgment today that it is in the best interests of this child to order his return forthwith from Angola, when he has not been in England now for virtually two years, over half his life, and I know nothing whatsoever with regard to his circumstances there? Moving down, in her fourth "key theme" she refers to the importance of a "swift … assessment of the best interests of the child …". One could scarcely use the word "swift" in relation to this case, in which the child has already been abroad for almost two years. She goes on to say, and I agree, that:
"There is no presumption that it is likely to accord with the child's welfare needs to be returned. The most one can say… is that the judge may find it convenient to start from the proposition that it is likely to be better for the child to return to his home country for disputes about his future to be decided there. …".
In a case such as the present, however, that now clearly begs a question of what is "his home country". Is it England, in which he was born but left for the last time at the age of 1 year and 9 months; or may it be Angola, where he may well have lived for at least that length of time and is currently living now? In her sixth "key theme" Mrs. Justice Pauffley says:
"One important variable is the degree of connection of the child with each country. Factors such as his nationality, where he has lived for most of his life, his race, ethnicity, religion … will all come into this. Another closely related factor will be the length of time he has spent in each country."
So far as the length of time is concerned, this child may well have spent as long in Angola as he ever spent here. So far as nationality is concerned, none of the people involved in this case is British. The father, as I have said, is Spanish; the child and the mother are of joint Portuguese and Angolan nationality.