Pretoria – A divorced Nelspruit father has been to three courts and is now appealing to Chief Justice Pius Langa in a desperate attempt to prevent his two children, aged 10 and 12, from moving to Abu Dhabi with their mother.
Karin Coetsee is a well-known cell biologist from Middelburg, Mpumalanga. She specialises in cancer treatment and can more than double her salary working at a hospital in Abu Dhabi – but she wants to take her children with her. She got custody of the children after the divorce.
Abu Dhabi is the capital of the United Arab Emirates and is situated in the Persian Gulf, north of Saudi Arabia.
Family law experts are watching the case with special interest as they want to know how the highest court in the country will weigh up the mother’s constitutional right to her children and to work, and the father’s right to have sufficient access to his children, against the children’s rights, protected by the Constitution, that courts must act in their best interest.
Andreas Coetsee claims in “extremely urgent” court documents handed to Langa on Tuesday that the High Court and a full bench of three judges of the High Court (on appeal) gave his former wife the right to take the children out of the country.
His application to appeal to the Appeal Court was refused and he has now turned to the Constitutional Court, due to the urgency of the matter.
Not in children’s best interests
He said when his former wife told him about the job offer, he had immediately refused to allow the children to go with her.
He said there were several reasons why it was not in the children’s best interest to be allowed to go with their mother.
Firstly, the regular physical contact with the children, which he had maintained since the divorce, would be broken.
Both his children were not able to speak English properly and it would disadvantage them to suddenly be educated in English.
The children would also “effectively” be cut off from their existing friends and the “rest of their whole family” due to the distance.
God Bless you Philip de Bruin, Beeld. Children Need Both Parents more than parents need more money. I’ll be watching this one closely. It is a very important subject to me.
Langa will now give the mother the opportunity to respond and will then decide if he will allow the application in the Constitutional Court.
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