child custody

Maria Elena Gonzalez (“Gonzalez”) filed for a temporary restraining order against her former partner, Maurelio Francisco Munoz (“Munoz”). She complained that Munoz violently attacked her on numerous occasions including burning her with hot grease, choking and beating her, and abusing her three-year-old daughter Flor. The trial court granted a temporary ex-parte restraining order to keep Munoz from Gonzalez and Flor. The court also issued personal conduct and stay-away orders, and granted physical and legal custody of Flor to Gonzalez with no visitation rights for Munoz.

The Infants Ordinance 1961 consolidates legislation concerning the guardianship, custody, adoption, protection, legitimation, and welfare of children in Samoa. It requires courts, when deciding questions of custody or upbringing, to give paramount consideration to the welfare of the child. Either parent may apply for custody, and the Court may appoint non-parent custodians if neither parent is fit.

Article 8 of the law amended the French Civil Code provisions regarding parental custody. Specifically, it included harassment or violence, whether physical or psychological, by one parent against the other among the factors in custody determinations. Article 31 of the law amended the French Criminal Code as follows: (i) it clarified that psychological violence falls within the scope of violence against the person; and (ii) it introduced a penal offense when the harassment of one’s spouse or partner results in a degradation of that spouse’s or partner’s physical or mental health.

Articles 32-53 of this law reinforced the provisions of the French Civil and Criminal Codes to provide enhanced protection to victims of domestic violence, including in relation to custody and housing. Articles 54-55 of the law reinforced the provisions of the French Civil Code  preventing forced marriages.

Under the Married Person (Protection) Act, a married woman can apply for an order that she is not “bound to cohabit with her husband,” for legal custody of children under the age 16, and for maintenance.  A married woman’s application for one of these orders must include either a husband’s assault on her of requisite seriousness, desertion, cruelty, willful neglect to provide maintenance, the husband is a “habitual drunkard,” the husband had a venereal disease and insisted on sex, the husband compelled her to prostitution, or adultery.

Parliament enacted The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act pursuant to the Supreme Court decision Shayara Bano v. Union of India.

The case concerned the capacity and dignity of mothers with disabilities. The court ultimately reinstated the mother’s custody of her child, who was given for adoption by the state as a result of the mother’s disability in violation of her rights. The court’s decision served two purposes: (i) to protect the best interests of the child, guarantee their right to have a family, and not be separated from it; and (ii) compliance with all of the state’s obligations towards persons with disabilities and their right to form a family with dignity.

In Pueblo v. Haas, 511 Mich. 345, 999 N.W.2d 433 (2023), the parties were in a long-term same-sex relationship that began before marriage equality was recognized in Michigan. The couple used in vitro fertilization to conceive a child, with the defendant serving as the biological parent listed on the birth certificate. After their relationship ended, the plaintiff sought joint custody and parenting time based on her parental role, despite lacking a biological or adoptive connection to the child.

Plaintiffs Kami and Angie Roe sued the Executive Director of the Utah Department of Health in his official capacity and sought a preliminary injunction seeking a court order to enjoin the defendants from applying sections of the Utah Uniform Parentage Act differently to male and female spouses of women who become pregnant via sperm donation.

In Shayara Bano v. Union of India, the petitioner was divorced by her husband after 15 years of marriage through talaq-e-biddat, a practice by which a Muslim man can divorce his wife by pronouncing “talaq” three times in one sitting, without the wife’s consent. She filed a writ petition challenging the practice as unconstitutional.