Holiday leave refused where risk of children not returning

A specific issue order sought by a father to allow him to take his children to Algeria for the purpose of a two week holiday has been refused by Sheriff Holligan at Edinburgh Sheriff Court against a background of a risk that the children would not be returned.

Algeria was not a party to the Hague Convention and much of its family law came from Islamic law. It would be difficult for the mother to have the children returned to the UK if the father refused to do so. Algerian law provided no adequate safeguards to ensure she would get a fair judicial process to have them returned. While there appeared to be no particular reason to consider the father would not return to Scotland where he appeared to be well settled, and while the mother conceded there would be cultural benefits to the trip, on balance there was a risk.

See A v B [2016] SC EDIN 53; 2016 GWD 27-492.