PIL instrument(s)

Case number and/or case name

Walsall MBC v KK, JK [2013] EWHC 3192 (Fam)

Details of the court

England and Wales, First Instance

Articles referred to by the court

Date of the judgement

07 October 2013

Appeal history

CJEU's case law cited by the court

Summary

The English public care proceedings were in respect of three children who were Slovakian national. The parents came to England in 2007, and were living in England. The children were born in England. The local authority was concerned about the care of the children, and they were removed from the parents’ care in February 2012 and March 2012, respectively. The children were together in a single foster placement. On 6th September 2013, the Slovakian Centre for the International Protection made an application for transfer of the English court proceedings to Slovakia. The English refused the application. Mr Justice Holman held: “18 It thus follows that in fact this request, made in the utmost good faith by the Centre for the International Legal Protection of Children and Youth in Slovakia for a transfer of the children and the proceedings now to Slovakia, is based on a fundamental misunderstanding. Clearly, if it were to be the case that the children cannot return to live with their birth parents, and if it was the case that the current carers are not permanent carers, whether on an adoptive basis or at all, so that the children would have to move in any event, then very active consideration would have to be given to whether long term they should not be relocated to Slovakia, of which they are citizens. But in the actual circumstances as I have described them, it could not possibly be in the best interests of any of these children currently to transfer any of them or these proceedings to Slovakia. They have lived now for about eighteen months with the foster family who, I am told, care for them extremely well. If they can return to live with their birth family, that is one thing; but if they cannot, then any decision to move them on from the foster family is one that would have to be made with a great deal of hesitation.” [18]