Durban - The father of a three-year-old child has obtained an urgent high court order compelling the child’s mother to give him her written consent to take the child overseas on a 10-day holiday in December.
And if she continues to refuse to do so, the order empowers the sheriff to sign the affidavit on her behalf.
This case – and another unrelated matter pending – signals that parents are still being forced to resort to expensive litigation in order to comply with new regulations involving travelling with children.
While the regulations – which are said to be responsible for a radical decline in South Africa’s tourism industry – are in the process of being amended, the requirement remains that children have to have a full birth certificate bearing both parents’ names and the written consent to travel of any parent not accompanying the child.
In the application, which came before Durban High Court Judge Themba Sishi, the father – who cannot be named – said the mother, his ex-girlfriend, had verbally consented to the trip but now, inexplicably, refused to depose to the necessary affidavit.
He said he was a co-holder of full parental rights and responsibilities, and looked after the child every second weekend and one day during the week.
His parents owned a property in Mauritius and at the beginning of this year, he approached her about taking the child on holiday there.
“She agreed – in fact she said the holiday would be in his best interests – and so we booked the flights,” he said.
“In March this year, in response to a letter sent by my attorney, she sent an e-mail giving her permission, saying it would be beneficial for him.”
But since then, in spite of his attorney sending three further e-mails requesting that she sign the affidavit and hand over his passport, “for unknown reasons she is refusing to co-operate”.
The judge directed that she sign the affidavit and hand over the passport within 48 hours of the granting of the order. Should she not comply, the father was given authority to apply to the Department of Home Affairs for a passport without her having to sign the necessary application forms.
In the pending matter to be heard later this month, a Hillcrest attorney is seeking an order against the director-general of home affairs, directing that he issue her 14-year-old daughter’s unabridged birth certificate which she applied for four years ago.
She said she first applied for the document in October 2011. At the same time, she applied for her other daughter and received that one in May the following year.
She believed that the delay, in part, was caused by an error in the identity number reflected on her abridged birth certificate in which the numbers depicting the day and month of her birth had been switched around.
While she had previously applied for and had been given a correct ID number, the department had insisted that she reregister the birth in 2014, which she did.
Since then, all her inquiries had met with the same response: she must wait for an SMS message.
She said she had given the department adequate notice of the court application and was hoping that it would comply so that she did not have to persist with it.
The Mercury
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