Father in international custody battle fears deportation before hearing date arrives

A father in a custody dispute fears he will have to leave the country before his case is heard by the courts. Photo / 123RF

The parents battling for custody of their son in an international tug of love may have to wait another eight months until the case that will ultimately decide who and what country the boy lives in is heard before the courts.

But in the meantime the boy's father fears he won't be in the country and will be separated from his son before the relocation hearing after Immigration New Zealand only granted him an extension to stay until October.

The boy's parents, whose names and identifying details cannot be published to protect their son's privacy, entered into a joint custody arrangement in 2017.

The agreement written up in the non-Hague convention country where the boy and his parents were living was also registered in New Zealand and the father's birth country.

The parents also agreed the mother would travel to New Zealand with the boy for three months before returning to where they had all been living overseas so they could raise him together.

But the mother breached the court order and did not return with the boy in September 2017. She then made allegations against the boy's father - her ex-husband - in an attempt to get the court order changed, but these were not upheld when heard before a judge last year.

Since then the father has left his job in the country he had been living in for 25 years and has been living in New Zealand since November 2018.

He was initially told the relocation hearing could take place between August 2019 and March 2020. The allocated date confirmed his worst fears that it would be even longer and had been set down for the end of March running into early April 2020.

The man has already been granted a special extension to his visitor visa moving the date from July to October while he spends time with his son and waits for the hearing.

The father's frustration with the court system is growing after a judge ordered in May that priority and urgency be given to a hearing date due to his visa restrictions.

He applied for a special hearing date no later than September, but his request was rejected on the grounds there were no additional judicial resources available.

The family was allocated a back-up date in July, which has already passed, and two others in December 2019 and February 2020 before the primary date in March/April 2020.

The father said the long wait was making it impossible for him to stay in the country as his visa does not allow him to work but he still has to pay rent and other expenses.

On top of this he also faced tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees for the five day hearing, and with no way of earning in New Zealand he feared he would run out of money.

"My financial situation and cash flow is impossible," the desperate father said.

"It is 10 months that I have been in NZ with no work or income and there is no end in sight! I don't know what to do.

"... I am looking at least five to nine more months until the next hearing and ruling, not including appeals.... so I am looking at years before the court will deliver justice.

"I just need a day in court, that is all I am asking from this NZ justice system."

McWilliam Rennie family lawyer Jacinda Rennie said family court hearings could often take between six to 18 months to be given a fixture and could often mean that a child might not see one of their parents or have very limited contact in a restricted and artificial supervised environment during that time.

"That is very hard for a parent who cannot be actively involved in a child's day-to-day life.

"However, it is even worse for children looking at the delay form a child's perspective."

The Care of Children Act specifically records that decisions should be made and implemented within a timeframe that is appropriate to the child's sense of time, she said.

Immigration NZ manager of operations support Michael Carley said INZ would consider applications from people whose visas were approaching their maximum allowable time in New Zealand as a visitor can apply for a further visa where there were compelling reasons such as the father of the boy waiting for the custody hearing.

Currently people on visitor visas could visit New Zealand for nine months in an 18 month period and could also apply for another three-month stay and extend their time in New Zealand to 12 months in a 24-month period. Parent and grandparent visas were also available allowed people to stay up to six months at a time with a total maximum stay of 18 months in three years.