The High Court has refused a Latvian father’s application for the summary return of his 12-year-old child from Ireland under the Hague Convention on international child abduction.
The child had lived in Latvia until August 2007, when his mother brought him to Ireland. He then attended school here and lived with his mother and Romanian stepfather. His mother, who had been diagnosed with cancer, died on May 8, 2008.
The child and his stepfather travelled to Latvia for the funeral later that month. While there, the father decided that the child should return to live in Latvia. The parties disputed whether the father later consented only to a temporary return to Ireland or agreed that the child could remain here longer.
The child returned to Ireland with his stepfather on May 28. The father alleged that the child's continued presence here became wrongful on June 15, 2008, and later sought his return through the Hague Convention.
The central legal issue was habitual residence. For the Hague Convention return procedure to apply, the father had to establish that the child was habitually resident in Latvia immediately before the alleged wrongful retention.
Finlay Geoghegan J found that the child had already acquired habitual residence in Ireland before his mother's death. That did not automatically end when she died. Nor did the child's short trip to Latvia for the funeral change it.
The judge also rejected the argument that the father's decision, as guardian, that the child should later live in Latvia was enough by itself to change the child's habitual residence. The child continued living and attending school in Dublin with the father's consent for at least part of the relevant period.
The application was therefore dismissed.
The court emphasised that this did not decide whether the child should continue living in Ireland or with his stepfather. Any future dispute about custody or living arrangements would have to be determined separately by the appropriate Irish court on the basis of the child's best interests.