Czech Republic Rules Against Return of Autistic Boy to US in Part Because of His So-Called Mental Illness
Czech woman marries autistic American and lives with him in Texas.
Subsequently, she leaves the man and returns to the Czech Republic – with their baby son, who may be autistic.
Some unspecified time later, the father demands the boy’s return to the US.
The mother defends that the father was threatening, if not downright abusive toward them both.
A Czech lower court ruled that the boy should be returned to his habitual residence in the US, under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
But a Czech appellate court reversed and the Czech Supreme Court ultimately, after three years of litigation all told, agreed that the boy should remain with his mother in the Czech Republic.
The Czech Supreme Court reportedly placed great emphasis on the boy’s bond with his mother and his special needs, apparently concluding that they boy would suffer psychological, if not physical harm, if returned to the US.
Perhaps impacting the high court’s ruling was an earlier decision in which it ordered the return of a six year old girl to her habitual residence, only to have the girl go on a hunger strike and crying jag, which led to her informal return to her mother in the Czech Republic – a day before the date of this article.
If the boy’s diagnosis with autism is accurate, however, one has to wonder whether living in a country where, according to the source report, if accurately translated, autism is misclassified as a mental illness, is in fact in the child’s best interests …
Read more in this Czech news article: Czech woman need not return ill son to father in USA — court.
