California mother held in custody breach case

Blog I am posting this to draw attention to what should be simply routine: the arrest of a parent after her abduction of her child. Hats off to California — the most progressive American state in this regard. By Sara EatonThe Journal GazetteMay 10, 2006 Police arrested a California woman Monday on charges of violating […]

Abducting parent (Canada to France) in Jail

Blog Vancouver court gets serious Woman accused of abducting her children to France is denied bail at 19:22 on May 11, 2006, EST.http://www.940news.com/nouvelles.php?cat=23&id=511119 VANCOUVER (CP) – A woman accused of abducting her two children and hiding out in France has been denied bail and ordered to stay in prison while she is pregnant. Nathalie Gettliffe-Grant […]

“Rights of Custody” under the Hague Convention

Blog In Bader v. Kramer, decided on April 17, 2006, the Fourth Circuit reviewed the meaning of the term “rights of custody,” which is one of the fundamental elements of any application under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. The parties were married, lived in Germany, had a daughter in 1999 […]

Rabbinic Courts in Israel

Blog Israel’s High Court of Justice has ruled that Israel’s rabbinic courts may not resolve divorced couples’ property and financial disputes unless they have explicit legal approval to do so. The Court rejected the rabbinic courts’ authority to serve as arbitrators in financial disputes, even though both parties had agreed to the proceeding. The Court […]

Islamic divorce vs. U.S divorce

Blog Islamic men who are foreign nationals but American residents often seek to divorce their spouses under the Sharia law prevailing in their country of origin rather than the secular law prevailing in the state of their marital domicile. Their intent is (a) to obtain an instant divorce by merely speaking certain words, (b) to […]

English divorce law: Divorced from reality

Blog Today’s (London) Times contains an opinion article from the paper’s former editor, William Rees-Mogg, attacking the English divorce system. The article, entitled “Divorced from the realities,” reflects a rising tide of anger in England that the English divorce laws, as they have been changed drastically but badly by the English judiciary in the past […]

Hague Convention: Consent & Acquiescence

Blog The High Court in England seems to have made it far easier for a child-abducting parent to prove the defenses of consent and acquiescence in a Hague Convention child abduction case than has previously been the case. In CJ v KJ [2005] EWHC 2998 (Fam), Mr. Justice Sumner accepted the evidence of the mother, who had […]

Hague Convention – Burden of Proof Case

Blog The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has ruled – in Humphrey v. Humphrey, a Hague Convention child abduction case concerning the removal of children from England to Virginia – that a federal district court in Virginia committed a fundamental error when it held that the left-behind father must establish the children’s habitual […]

English Divorce Law in Turmoil

Blog England is a forum of choice for spouses with less assets to sue their internationally-connected wealthier spouses for divorce.  Until 2000 the English courts divided a married couple’s assets in a way that would ensure that the “reasonable needs” of the financially weaker party — usually the wife — were met. It meant that […]

Malaysia: Fierce Debate about Polygamy & Divorce

Blog There is quite a furious debate under way in Malaysia over new family legislation on polygamy and divorce. Women’s groups are claiming that the new law will make it easier for men to take multiple wives and to claim property after divorce. The new law will apparently allow a husband to obtain an injunction […]