F v H

Jurisdiction of the Royal Court to make an order concerning minor children who do not at the present time live in Jersey and where there are no matrimonial proceedings in Jersey.

This application raises the question of whether the Royal Court has jurisdiction to make an order concerning minor children who do not at the present time live in Jersey and where there are no matrimonial proceedings in Jersey. We now give our reasons for the decision which we announced at the end of the hearing.

The representor and the respondent were married. They lived in England and had three children, all of whom remain minors. They are now divorced and the mother (representor) wishes to remarry and to move permanently to Jersey to live with her new husband. In matrimonial proceedings in the Family Division of the High Court of Justice of England and Wales the Court made an order that the children should reside with their mother. It also gave her leave to remove the children out of England and Wales permanently to Jersey in order that they might come with her to live in this Island.

The High Court is however anxious to ensure that the children maintain contact with their father, who will remain living in England. It therefore made detailed orders for contact (access in Jersey terminology) between the father and the children once they are living in Jersey. Some of this will take place in Jersey but access will also take place in England.

Accordingly the order of the High Court requested this Court to provide assistance by making, if possible, an order mirroring the order of the High Court and further expressed its order to be conditional upon the mother obtaining a mirror order from this Court prior to the children being removed from the English jurisdiction. This is apparently common practice in such cases.