Father demands authorities disclose son's whereabouts

A man who is claiming that to have been systematically denied information about the whereabouts of his four-year-old son has called on the authorities to remedy the situation whereby fathers involved in marital separation proceedings are prevented from knowing where their children are being brought up.

This is the subject of a judicial protest filed earlier today against the authorities, after the father found himself in what he called “this incredible and highly prejudicial” situation.

The 55-year-old man, who is unable to work due to a medical condition and who is currently involved in a custody battle pending separation proceedings filed by his Filipino wife, said he knows that the woman is not living at a domestic violence shelter as she claims. However, when he approached the shelter's senior management about the question, it was insisted that the woman and child still lived there.

After the courts had twice refused to order that he be informed of his son's whereabouts, “the plaintiff finds himself in the incredible and highly prejudicial situation of not knowing where his son is living,” the judicial protest filed by lawyer Edward Gatt this morning reads.

In a separate case, the Court of Appeal had previously confirmed the man's conviction for failing to pay maintenance, but had reduced his punishment from a prison sentence to a conditional discharge.

The protest, filed before the First Hall of the Civil Court, calls on the Director General of Courts, the Attorney General, the director of support agency Appogg, the minister for justice Owen Bonnici and the director of Dar Qalb ta' Gesu shelter to provide this information to him.

He claims that Appogg are well aware of the fact that there is no longer any reason to limit his access to the son to supervised visits but had failed to inform the court of this. “Whenever Appogg get involved proceedings drag out and expenses are incurred... but no progress has been registered in the past months.”

The father claims that this refusal constitutes a continuing breach of his right to family life under the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.