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- The wife's divorce petition had been stayed on the basis that proceedings had already begun in Italy. On appeal, the question was whether the Italian court was still seised of proceedings. Moylan LJ held that this was for the Italian court to determine, but allowed the wife's appeal to the extent that English proceedings were adjourned, rather than stayed. Baker LJ agreed. Judgment, 26/04/2019, free
- The mother appealed against an order for the return of the child to Australia. The original retention of the child took place in Uganda, a country not party to the Hague Convention 1980. In Moylan LJ's view, a retention which takes place other than in a Contracting State is a retention which is justiciable under the Convention in a Contracting State, if and when the child travels to a Convention State. There is no need for removal to be to a Contracting State, nor is there any need for the retention to be in a Contracting State. McCombe LJ and Leggatt LJ agreed. Judgment, 23/04/2019, free
- Because of an error by the court, who did not notice that the parties had not been separated for at least 2 years despite ticking that option on the divorce application form, the President ruled that the decrees nisi and absolute were voidable, not void. Judgment, 25/03/2019, free
- Wife's application for leave to amend her petition for divorce from the residual ground of sole domicile, to indent 2 of Article 3(1)(a) of Council Regulation 2201/2003 - namely, that the petitioner and respondent were last habitually resident in England and Wales and that the petitioner still resides in this jurisdiction - was refused. Judgment, 22/03/2019, free
- An order for a third party lump sum to be paid to the wife was set aside as the DDJ did not have jurisdiction to make such an order. Judgment, 06/03/2019, free
- An order which ordered the wife to pay £20,000 towards the husband's costs after the breakdown of the marriage was left undisturbed as the order was not outside the spectrum of reasonable decisions that might have been made. Judgment, 26/02/2019, free
- In this contested divorce a decree nisi was granted to the wife after the judge found that the husband had been committing adultery for 25 years and the wife had only found out about it in 2017. Judgment, 28/11/2018, free
- Wife's application under Part III of the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984 following an Egyptian divorce. The wife failed to establish that the documents giving rise to the wider family's beneficial interests in three London properties were forgeries or sham transactions manufactured by the husband for the purposes of this litigation, but the court did make an order allowing her to live rent free in one of the properties until the child turned 18. Judgment, 21/11/2018, free
- The court had to decide whether the English or German court was first seised in circumstances where the wife had initially not validly served the divorce petition on the husband and the husband then served his petition in Germany during the subsequent period. The issue here was whether there had been an abuse of process on the part of the wife after the husband claimed that she had issued her petition simply to secure the English jurisdiction in the event that a divorce was needed and in fact the marriage had not at that time irretrievably broken down. The court ruled that the husband had known about the wife's petition before it was validly served and before he issued his own petition and that the English court had jurisdiction. Judgment, 17/10/2018, free
- In brief: Following the making of an order returning the child to Spain from England, the mother’s (“M”) mental health rapidly deteriorated. She successfully applied to the High Court to have the order set aside and a re-hearing listed following a psychiatric assessment. The Court of Appeal upheld the set aside, concluding that the High Court has the power under the inherent jurisdiction to review and set aside 1980 Hague Convention final orders. The power can be used where there has been a fundamental change of circumstances which undermines the basis on which the original order was made. Here the original return order had been made where the court found that M had not made out her Article 13(b) defence which included M’s claims that there were grave risks to her mental health. Judgment, 16/08/2018, free