EUPillar F v M, N (by her Children's Guardian) [2008] EWHC 1525 (Fam)

Summary

The proceedings were in respect of a child, N, born in October 2001. The child abduction proceedings were commenced in England by the father on 18th March 2008. The child was wrongfully removed on 27th May 2006 when the mother and the child left Poland for England. The parties, who were all Polish, were married in Poland, where their matrimonial home was. The divorce proceedings were initiated in Poland on 27th March 2006, and they had been going since then. The father, who had not acquiesced to the removal, sought the return of the child to Poland. The child was well settled in England. Mrs Justice Black held: “78 The result that I seek to achieve in the exercise of my discretion is for N to return to Poland to the extent that is necessary to enable the Polish court to determine her future and to do so with the minimum of delay. I was asked as part of the submissions if I would consider making a request to the Polish court under Article 15 of Brussels IIR for them to request that the English courts should hear the proceedings relating to N. It seems to me that this would be wholly inappropriate at this stage of these Polish proceedings. The Polish court is not simply the court with jurisdiction under Brussels IIR, it is the court best placed at the moment to deal with N's welfare. I do not, however, consider that it is in N's interests to return to Poland at this stage except in so far as it is necessary to enable the Polish court to determine matters or, of course, if the Polish court finally decided in favour of F or decided that M should look after N but in Poland, for the purposes of complying with the final Polish order. I will permit counsel to make short submissions before I finally decide on the way forward but what I have in mind is to order N's return but to suspend the operation of that order so that M, who will now have to take an active and personal part in the Polish proceedings, can pursue a new application there for a variation of the interim custody order and, if it is possible in Poland, an application for permission to bring N here temporarily/permanently. I will also expect her to seek to make arrangements through her Polish lawyers for another appointment to be made for an examination of herself and N by the Consulting Centre and for the final hearing of the matter to come on quickly. I will hear counsel on the question of how long I should leave it before reconsidering the question of suspension in the light of the results of these inquiries. If no real progress were to be made by the time the matter returned to court, it might be anticipated that I would simply remove the suspension and the order would become operative forthwith. Similarly, the order should automatically cease to be suspended in the event that the Polish court requires the return of N in advance of the return date before me.” [78]