LAHORES:
Lahore High Court Judge Ali Baqar Najafi was seeking responses from concerned circles by December 20 to a UK-based Pakistani resident requesting the return of a minor.
In January 2003, the then Chief Justice of Pakistan and the President of the Family Division of the UK High Courts signed the UK Pakistan Protocol on Children Matters.
This is a judicial agreement aimed at ensuring the return of an abducted child to the country where they normally live, regardless of the parents’ nationality, culture or religion.
The petitioner’s lawyer, Seyyed Madasar Ali Shah, asked the court to implement an order from the British court in Pakistan. He informed the Court that, under Section (2) of the Protocol, “if a child is removed from the United Kingdom to Pakistan or from Pakistan to the United Kingdom without parental consent with a custody/residence order or withholding/ban on Order of the court of the child’s habitual/habitual residence, the judge of the court of the country to which the child was removed does not normally have jurisdiction over the child, unless the court must order the return of the child to the country of habitual residence /habitual residence of the child”.
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The High Court of Justice, Family Division, London found that the minor was illegally removed by the defendant (ex-wife) on 9 October 2022 and taken to Pakistan.
Defendant Asya Zahra Shah was also ordered to bring the child back to England and Wales within seven days and to email her solicitors and the child’s solicitors directly that she has returned with the child.
“Any person within the jurisdiction of this court who is able to do so should cooperate in assisting and ensuring the child’s prompt return to England and Wales,” the order said.
The lawyer claimed that his client married Asya on May 15, 2015 and Imaani Zahra Seyyeda Shah was born on April 19, 2017. The marriage between them failed to survive and the parties initially separated on July 6, 2017, which later culminated in divorce on February 8, 2019.
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He said that the decision regarding custody and visitation of the minor was pending before the competent UK court and in that respect both parties had consented to the jurisdiction of the UK courts and had also sought legal representation before the courts of the United Kingdom United Kingdom procures the United Kingdom.
In addition, he said, the British court granted the petitioner with the minor a visit. “In doing so, the accused ex-wife began creating fictitious obstacles to make it difficult for the petitioner to access the minor, based on frivolous allegations, including allegedly removing the minor from her school, forcing the petitioner to seek the intervention of the to request British courts,” he said.
Eventually, the lawyer alleged, the defendant ex-wife recognized the legal redundancy of her frivolous allegations and therefore proceeded to permanently deport the minor from the UK to Pakistan on October 9, 2022.
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