A Georgian court must now rule on a child custody case, though the mother has fled to Italy and had the case heard there, per the Supreme Court, as reported by the Athens Banner-Herald on February 7.
Silvia Larese fled to Italy, with her child, when she sought a divorce from her husband, Robert Shelton Bellew.
Last February a Clarke County Superior Court ruled to dismiss both Bellew’s divorce case and child custody case. The new ruling overturns that earlier decision.
Georgia’s Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act was cited in the ruling. The Act states that a child’s home state can decide custody matters.
The home state is wherever the child lived for the six months prior to any custody claims.
The Supreme Court ruled that courts in other states and countries would naturally tend to rule in a parent’s favor. This law was enacted to help combat “parental forum shopping.”
In 2002 Bellew and Larese were married in Italy. Their son was born that same year.
The couple then moved to Athens, Georgia, where they resided from 2004 to 2007.
Both worked at University Georgia Athens, UGA.
Larese taught Italian and Bellew was a graduate teaching assistant in the Romance Languages Department.
In May of 2007 Bellew was arrested on charges of domestic violence.
Three months after that, Larese took their five year-old son and fled with him to Italy.
And, in another three months, Larese filed for divorce.
The boy has dual U.S.-Italian citizenship.
Citing the Hague Convention on Child Abduction, a treaty adopted between the U.S. and Italy, Bellew filed a complaint with the Italian Ministry of Justice.
Bellew also filed and gained a divorce in November of 2007. Superior Court Chief Judge Lawton Stephens awarded him temporary custody of his son.
This began an international custody battle, and the Italian court awarded custody to Larese three months later.
Judges in both countries weren’t able to work things out, under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act, as Larese’s request to suspend her husband’s custody attempts in Georgia was granted.
In 2009 the Italian court, Tribunale di Firenze, ruled that Georgia law wasn’t applicable for the child custody matter, but only allowed in the divorce case.
Judge Stephens dismissed Bellew’s divorce complaint and child custody claim in February 2010, citing that the Italian court held the jurisdiction.
But in the most recent findings by the Supreme Court, both the U.S. and Italy had made errors.
Justice P. Harris Hines wrote, “Tribunale di Firenze undertook no analysis of the home state of the child, or of any other factors that could be considered a substitute for such; it simply found that the prerequisites for jurisdiction over a divorce action were met. (Stephens) erred in dismissing the complaint on the grounds that jurisdiction properly lay with the trial court Tribunale di Firenze.”
If you are facing a custody battle, whether on foreign or U.S. soil, you must learn your rights and how to protect them. Contact a family law attorney from our directory for help.