Mother Wins Right to Emigrate to New Zealand with Daughter, SA Raises Concerns About Fathers' Custody Rights
- A judge has ruled in favour of a mother who wishes to relocate to New Zealand with her daughter after the father opposed it
- The mother is married and has a four-month-old baby with another father, while the father of her daughter did not want his child to leave SA
- The judge ruled that New Zealand's education, healthcare, security and the lower unemployment rate will be best for the daughter
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Judge Fiona Dippenaar has ruled against a father who sought to halt his daughter's emigration to New Zealand with her mother. According to Judge Dippenaar, it was in the child's best interests to emigrate as her mother had been her primary caregiver since she was born.
The mother is married to someone else with whom she shares a four-month-old baby. She is a qualified clinical psychologist who found work in Auckland, New Zealand. The father opposed the emigration due to the possibility of it prejudicing his relationship with his child.
Judge Dippenaar, presiding at the South Gauteng High Court, stated that the father's application lacked merit. She revealed that he had not put up any primary facts that would justify his opposition.
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According to IOL, Judge Dippenaar made mention of the mother relocating to pursue a new life in a secure location that provides free healthcare programmes and education and also has a lower unemployment rate than SA.
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She added that it was up to the respondent to reduce prejudice between the child and her father by negotiating access to each other on a day-to-day basis through virtual means.
Briefly News shared the story to our Facebook page to see what our readers had to say about the judgement:
Read some of our readers responses below:
Louise van Schalkwyk wrote:
"Debatable if it's better for a child in NZ, seeing NZ has one of the highest teen suicide statistics in the world..."
Sophie Ngidi believes:
"Most biological fathers neglect the children, especially once the relationship is over."
Spha Kunene said:
"Courts are doing everything to strip kids away from their fathers. The law is always against men in South Africa. Apparently, men have no rights."
Cathrynne Friedenthal Moyes commented:
"Absolutely. It is selfish of the father to try and keep his daughter in South Africa."
Tarirai Zhemilino wants to know:
"If the roles had been changed, will the judge uprooted the child from the mother's care in favour of the green pastures if the father was relocating to the same destination?"
Louraine Modise added:
"A lot of children are doing well without their biological father."
"Something fishy here": SA suspicious about court's decision to grant the media access to Zuma's tax records
In other court case news, Briefly News reported that former President Jacob Zuma's tax records can now be accessed by two media organisations, namely the Financial Mail and investigative journalism group amaBhungane.
This comes after a ruling by the North Gauteng High Court sitting in Pretoria. The South African Revenue Services has thus been ordered to provide both publications with Zuma's tax records from the time period between 2010 and 2018 and SARS needs to do so in 10 days, according to TimesLIVE.
The publications launched a motion to access Zuma's tax records in 2019. They claimed that the legislative system fails to strike the proper constitutional balance between freedom of expression and privacy rights.
Source: Briefly News
