Family: 'Dishonest' dad tried to mislead court – ruling

A Pretoria father who wanted to emigrate with his son (12) to Canada without discussing it with his ex-wife, had his application dismissed by Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) Acting Judge PJM Mogotsi. The Star reports the father approached the court seeking to enforce clause 1.2.7 which they had in their divorce settlement. The 1.2.7 clause contained that: ‘Parties agree that the minor child shall alternate between the parties when they are in deployment to overseas countries as they have always been during the subsistence of the marriage and neither party shall withhold consent unreasonably and shall sign all the necessary documents and shall attend to all necessary meetings/attendances, at his own cost, to enable the minor child, to travel outside the RSA, from time to time.’ The father said the clause entitled him to remove the minor child from the primary care of his mother and to relocate with him to Canada.

However, Mogotsi held a different view regarding the clause. According to the report in The Star, Mogotsi said the phrase ‘travel’ indicated that the parties intended the clause to be employed in the event that they unreasonably withhold consent when the minor child was about to travel outside the country and have nothing to do with the primary resident of the minor child. ‘The parties, in my view, never intended the primary resident of the child to alternate between them when deployed overseas,’ Mogotsi said, adding the father’s approach to the situation was worth mentioning as it was deceiving. ‘He intended to catch the mother off-guard by not telling her outright of his intentions. The mother had to second-guess his intentions as a result of the WhatsApp messages transmitted between the two.’ The court heard that the father secretly arranged the travel documents and then informed the mother of his intentions when he was ready to relocate with the child. ‘The father struck me as a dishonest person by attempting to mislead the court. In my view, a punitive cost order was appropriate in the circumstances,’ said Mogotsi.