A (A Child) (Inherent Jurisdiction: Parens Patriae, FMPO And Passport Orders) (Rev 2) (2020)

Upon a mother’s application, the High Court invoked its inherent jurisdiction to make a 12-year-old British national a ward of court and exercised its parens patriae jurisdiction to order her return to the UK, even though she had lived for most of her life in Algeria with her father. There was  evidence that the girl had suffered significant harm in her father’s care.   The return order was sucssessfully appealed in Re M (A Child) [2020] EWCA Civ 922 when the Court of Appeal took the opportunity to clarify the substantive test to be applied by the Court in deciding whether to exercise the parens partriae jurisdiction.

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