Posts
by Jeremy D. Morley
Lebanon is, in my opinion, a proven safe haven for international parental child abduction. I testified to this effect last month in great detail in a case in Texas.
My
credentials include extensive research concerning Lebanese family law,
consultations with numerous clients, and often with Lebanese counsel,
concerning abductions and potential abductions to Lebanon, and my hosting of a
meeting about Lebanese family law. in New York with three Lebanese judges (one
from a Christian court, one from a Sharia court and one from a civil court) as
well as a top Lebanese family lawyer.
Lebanon
has failed and refused to adopt the Hague Abduction Convention. It has a religious-based
judicial system in the sphere of family law matters. It does not have one civil
code regulating personal status matters. There are 15 separate personal status
laws for the country’s different recognized religious communities, twelve of
which are Christian and four are Muslim, with the remaining courts and laws
being for Druze and Jews. Each of these laws are administered by separate
religious courts. It is often extremely difficult to enforce custody orders in
Lebanon and it is relatively simple for parents to frustrate the process for
extended periods of time by moving to other locations in Lebanon or by
initiating new civil or criminal proceedings within Lebanon.
Given
the current overwhelming challenges that Lebanon faces with terrorism,
corruption and a collapsed economy, it is most unlikely that the extreme
difficulties faced by left-behind parents in trying to secure the return of
children who have been abducted to Lebanon will be ameliorated in the
foreseeable future.
