Supreme Court rules in international custody case

The UK’s Supreme Court has recently given a ruling that is likely to have an impact on future international child custody cases, reports the Guardian.

The case involved a custody dispute between a British father and Spanish mother over their 13-year-old daughter and three other younger siblings.

The children were all born in the UK and lived there while the couple were together. When they separated in in 2012, the mother took the children back with her to Spain. The children came back to visit their father for Christmas, but did not return to Spain at the end of the visit as scheduled.

The mother began legal action seeking the return of the children, but the daughter said she did not want to return to Spain.

A high court judge ruled that the children were “habitually resident” in Spain and all four should be returned there, despite the older child’s objections.

The father appealed this decision, and the Supreme Court has now ruled in his favour. The Court said that the daughter’s "assertions about her state of mind" should be taken into account when deciding where she will live, and that her “perception” was equally important to that of her parents, reports the Guardian.

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