High Court Agrees to Hear Landmark Challenge on Rights of Children in Custody Matters

Flowing from the case of a Queensland mother who had lost in an attempt in the family court to keep her daughters from being deported back to Italy after in 2010 she took her four daughters and fled to Australia as a refugee from Italy, the High Court said last Friday  (25 May 2012) that it will hear a landmark constitutional challenge on the rights of children to be heard in custody disputes.

The High Court case is be set down for hearing by the full bench of the High Court in August of this year and Tony Morris QC reported as acting for the children's great-aunt, said the case was likely to have ramifications for all future child custody and child abduction cases saying further that:

"The purpose of [the hearing] will be to decide whether or not, under Australian law, children have a right to be heard by an Australian court before they can be sent overseas," 

"This decision, when the High Court hands it down, will set in stone for all time the rights of children to be treated as human beings and not just the goods and chattels of their parents, to be heard before a decision is made that will effect frankly their entire lives.

"I'm optimistic that the High Court will say every child who is old enough to have a sensible view about what they want to do with their own lives should have the right to be heard before that sort of decision is made." 

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