UK-based Pakistani seeks implementation of child custody treaty

Lahore High Court’s Justice Ali Baqar Najafi sought replies from concerned quarters by December 20 on a plea filed by a UK-based Pakistani, seeking return of a minor.

In January 2003, then Chief Justice of Pakistan and the President of Family Division of the High Courts of the UK signed the "UK Pakistan Protocol on Children Matters".

This is a judicial understanding which aims to secure the return of an abducted child to the country where they normally live, without regard to the nationality, culture or religion of the parents.

Petitioner Seyyed Madasar Ali Shah’s counsel implored the court that an order of the UK court is to be implemented in Pakistan. He told the court that under clause (2) of the protocol, "if a child is removed from the UK to Pakistan, or from Pakistan to the UK, without the consent of the parent with a custody/residence order or a restraint/interdict order from the court of child’s habitual/ordinary residence, the judge of the court of the country to which the child has been removed shall not ordinarily exercise jurisdiction over the child, save in so far as it is necessary for the court to order the return of the child to the country of the child’s habitual/ordinary residence".

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High Court of Justice, Family Division, London noted that the minor was illegally removed on October 9, 2022, by the respondent (ex-wife) and brought into Pakistan.

It was further ordered that the respondent Asya Zahra Shah shall return the child to England and Wales within seven days and must notify her solicitors and the solicitors for the child by email directly that she has returned with the child.

"Every person within the jurisdiction of this court who is in a position to do so shall co-operate in assisting and securing the immediate return to England and Wales of child," the order also stated.

The counsel contended that his client solemnised marriage with Asya on May 15, 2015, and Imaani Zahra Seyyeda Shah was born on April 19, 2017. The marriage between them could not survive and the parties initially separated on July 6, 2017, which later culminated in divorce on February 8, 2019.

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He said that the matter pertaining to the custody and visitation of the minor was pending adjudication before the competent court of the UK and in this respect, both parties had conceded jurisdiction of the courts of the UK and had further procured legal representation before the courts of the UK.

Furthermore, he said, the UK court had granted visitation to the petitioner with the minor. "At this, the respondent ex-wife started creating fictitious impediments to encumber the petitioner’s access to the minor, based on frivolous allegations including pretextual removal of the minor from her school such that the petitioner was forced to seek the intervention of the UK courts," he said.

Eventually, the counsel claimed, the respondent ex-wife realised that legal redundancy of her frivolous allegations and hence proceeded to permanently remove the minor from the UK to Pakistan on October 9, 2022.