International Child Abduction & Relocation

It saves time, money and heartache, avoids dragging out the legal process via appeals, and provides the opportunity for parties to create a basis for co-operation in the future.

In principle, the decision should be joint, because parents have shared and equal responsibility under Israeli law for deciding where a child should live. If they cannot agree, the parent wishing to move abroad must win a relocation plea filed against the other parent, but first will need to obtain custody, if he/she is not already the custodial parent.

Yes, child abduction is a criminal offence under the Penal Law of 1977, and a person who removes a minor under 16 from Israel, whether physically, or by temptation, from their custodian, without the latter’s agreement, can face up to 20 years imprisonment.

English courts take a very strict line in dealing with the use of ‘grave risk’ of psychological harm when dealing with child abduction defences.

Very strict. The Court of Appeal rejected an appeal by the mother, who had abducted her young child to England, against a High Court of Justice order for the minor’s return to Israel. Although the court of Appeal did recognize that there had been an escalation of violence, and that there were random and indiscriminate attacks, concentrating on major urban centres and public transport, it did say life went on as usual, and rejected the ‘grave risk’ of physical harm argument related to the terrorist attacks in Israel. It said that the number of deaths from road traffic accidents exceeded that from terror attacks.

The test of the ‘grave risk of harm’ defence provided for in the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of Child Abduction, by which both the U.S.A. and Israel are bound, is based on the ‘zone of war’ referred to in the 1996 Freidrich Case.

It must be remembered that because of the dynamic nature of Israel’s security situation , any assessment of the Hague Convention’s ‘grave risk’ defence related to it would be examined by the appropriate French court at the time an application was made for the return of the unlawfully retained minors.

Yes, judging by a decision made by a Bucharest Area 6 District Court a few years ago, shortly a terrorist attack. The mother claimed that both she and the father, who were married, and who were both new immigrants in Israel had flown to their native Romania with their daughter because of the worrying security situation . The husband subsequently returned to Israel but the mother refused to join with their child. The father brought Hague Convention proceedings in Romania for the return of the minor but the court accepted the mother’s ‘grave risk’ defence and refused to order the daughter’s return.

The court referred to the threat from suicide bombers operating in Israel , noting that Romanian citizens were among the many innocent civilians killed or injured in the terror attacks. It concluded that the return of the minor to Israel ‘ is likely to expose her to grave dangers, and even to endanger her life, as long as every week there is a terror attack in Israel in which innocent people are killed and the situation in Israel continues to be tense to this day.’

Clearly this will depend on the way in which the court abroad perceives the security situation in Israel – and reviews evidence presented by the abducting parent. It is likely that this will vary from country to country.

One of the permitted defences under the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of Child Abduction is that returning a minor to the country of his/her habitual residence would put him/her in a grave risk of physical harm.

The father can take Hague Convention proceedings to secure the minor’s return via the Central Authority in Israel because on that date the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of Child Abduction became effective regarding abductions between Israel and Latvia.