Judgment from the Western Cape High Court in which the applicant father launched a Hague application against the respondent mother. The parties are Australian citizens, and towards the end of an extended trip around Europe and South Africa, the parties’ relationship had broken down. The respondent remained in South Africa with the children while the applicant flew home to Australia on 1 January 2023, on a flight which the parties had pre-booked for the family.
The applicant claimed that the children had been wrongfully retained by the respondent in Cape Town, and that the children were only meant to visit South Africa for a temporary period between October 2022 and January 2023. The respondent claimed that the applicant had agreed that she and the children would remain in South Africa while the parties sought to reach agreement about their marriage and residency plans.
The Court considered the applicant’s conduct, which Cloete J stated ‘smacked of bad faith’, and determined that there was an agreement in place for the respondent and the children to remain in South Africa, albeit not permanently. The Court ultimately found that the applicant had failed to establish a wrongful retention. Due to his numerous material non-disclosures and falsehoods, the applicant was ordered to pay the respondent’s costs, including those of a senior counsel.
MB v LC and Another (21586-2023) [2024] ZAWCHC 61 (29 February 2024)