Family Court of Australia – Full Court
Lim & Zong [2020] FamCAFC 20 (31 January 2020)
FAMILY LAW – APPEAL – PARENTING – Where the primary judge made orders on an interim basis providing for no time or communication between the father and the child – Where such orders were not proposed by any party – Where the primary judge did not raise, with the parties, those orders as being in contemplation – Where the mother made serious allegations of family violence perpetrated by the father upon the mother and the child – Where the father disputed those allegations – Consideration of principles of factual findings in interim proceedings – Consideration of Salah & Salah (2019) FLC 93-713 – Where the primary judge made concluded findings of fact on disputed issues and on untested evidence – Where the making of such findings is an error – Appeal allowed – Proceedings remitted for further interim hearing.
Handbury & State Central Authority and Anor [2020] FamCAFC 5 (21 January 2020)
FAMILY LAW – APPEAL – CHILD ABDUCTION – Hague Convention 1980 – Repudiatory retention – Whether the trial judge erred in her conclusion that the appellant mother’s actions constituted an objectively identifiable act of repudiation – Consideration of whether an act of repudiatory retention axiomatically breached the second respondent father’s rights of custody, including the right to determine the habitual residence of the child, in accordance with regulation 4(2), notwithstanding that the family remained living in the same household for many months subsequent to the repudiation – Whether the trial judge failed to afford the appellant mother procedural fairness to enable her to adduce further evidence, in circumstances where she initiated the relevant evidence about statements allegedly made to the child about her country of residence – Whether the trial judge failed to give adequate reasons as to whether the retention was in breach of the second respondent father’s rights of custody- Where there is no merit in the grounds of appeal – Appeal dismissed.
FAMILY LAW – APPEAL – COSTS – Whether an order could be made against the appellant mother for the second respondent father’s costs – Consideration of ss 117 and 117AA of the Act – Application for costs by the second respondent father dismissed.
Federal Circuit Court
Olofsson & Olofsson [2019] FCCA 3467 (20 December 2019)
FAMILY LAW – PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE – Application to set aside Notice of Discontinuance in parenting proceedings – consideration of correctness of decision in Laramie & Caul [2018] FCCA 1371 – whether the underlying principle of finality of proceedings should apply to parenting proceedings – whether section 15 of Federal Circuit Court of Australia Act 1999 (Cth) provides an alternate source of power.
