The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal in Canada has rejected a Moroccan father's request to return his two children to Morocco under the Hague Convention on Child Abduction, upholding an earlier ruling that the children are habitually resident in Canada. The ruling ordered the father to pay $2,500 in costs to the Legal Aid Commission, Canadian Lawyer reported on Tuesday. The case involved a Moroccan couple who married in 2007, settled in Regina in 2009, and had two children in 2010 and 2016, both born in Canada. The family lived together until the father left for Morocco in September 2023, abandoning his job at Regina General Hospital and ceasing to support the household. Later that year, the father applied for the children's return to Morocco, presenting a Moroccan divorce judgment that granted him visitation rights and awarded custody to the mother. However, in August 2024, the Saskatchewan Court of King's Bench denied the application—a decision that the father appealed against. While the appeal court acknowledged a factual error in how the chambers judge interpreted the father's travel timeline, it found that the mistake did not impact the outcome. The court concluded that the children's ties to Canada—school enrollment, continued residence in Regina, and the father's unilateral departure—established their habitual residence in Canada. The ruling confirms that the father's departure was sudden and voluntary, and that the children's retention in Canada was not wrongful under Article 3 of the Hague Convention.
