Abduction of Lydia Hunt

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Stephen Timms

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting this, the final debate of the calendar year. Lydia Hunt is the first child of my constituent Jonathan Hunt and his wife Irma Obregon Guerrero. Lydia was born in June 2006. At Easter 2008, shortly before Lydia’s second birthday, the family travelled to Mrs Hunt’s native Mexico for a holiday with her family. Mr Hunt returned to the UK in May for work commitments, and the plan was that his wife and Lydia would follow a couple of weeks later. Some time later, Mrs Hunt called her husband to tell him that there would be a delay. She first said that she was unwell and then that her father was entering a land deal and that she needed to sign some papers in connection with it. She noted that the slow-moving legal system in Mexico meant that she would have to stay for at least a month.

The plan was that Mrs Hunt and Lydia would accompany Mrs Hunt’s parents to the UK in August, where they intended to spend a holiday, but on 16 August 2008, at 1 o’clock in the morning, Mr Hunt received a call from his wife to inform him that they would not be coming and that she did not intend to return at all but instead planned to remain in Mexico with Lydia. To date, Lydia remains in Mexico with Mrs Hunt. Their whereabouts are officially unknown. An arrest warrant for Mrs Hunt was applied for some time ago and finally confirmed in July this year after numerous appeals and delays, but it has not been acted on. When asked for a reason, the Mexican authorities say that they are still investigating.

Mexico is a signatory to The Hague convention on the civil aspects of international child abduction of 1980. This requires the determination of abduction cases involving minors within six weeks from the date of commencement of proceedings. I want to take this opportunity to thank the Minister, who is in his place on the Government Front Bench, for the personal interest that he has taken in the case. He has raised it on a number of occasions with his Mexican counterpart, and I know that the Foreign Secretary also discussed Lydia’s abduction with the Mexican Foreign Minister on a recent visit to the UK. I am very grateful for those interventions, but Lydia has not been returned and Mexico has still not met its legal obligations. This evening, I should like to press the Minister on the further specific actions that the UK Government can take to secure her return.

I am keen to underline two points: first, the length of time it has taken for Mr Hunt’s case to be dealt with—three years and counting; and, secondly, the wider issue of the non-compliance of a signatory to an international treaty. On the first point, let me set out a little more detail on the case.

Under The Hague convention, when a child has been removed abroad from its habitual residence, they have first to be returned to the country of habitual residence for the courts in that country to start determining custody. That is the basis on which the convention works. Three days after Mr Hunt’s wife made her bombshell telephone call announcing that she was not coming back—that is, on 19 August 2008—Mr Hunt filed a convention request for the Mexican authorities to return Lydia. Before that date, Mr Hunt knew nothing at all about The Hague convention, which requires that such requests be complied with within six weeks—that is, in this case, by the end of September 2008. In fact, more than three years later, it has still not been complied with.

Lydia was made a ward of the High Court in London in January 2009, so any major decision about her has to be made by the High Court. After a delay of almost a year, the Mexican court issued a return order for Lydia in December 2009 with immediate effect, and that judgment correctly followed the terms of The Hague convention.

In the following March—that is, March last year— Mr Hunt’s wife filed for an amparo, a Mexican legal procedure that is intended, I understand, to protect the constitutional rights of a Mexican citizen. It appears in practice—at least in this case—to give almost unlimited scope for frustrating the execution of international law. As a result of the amparo, The Hague order and the arrest warrant for Mrs Hunt were both suspended.

In May this year, an amparo hearing was held. The judge ordered that the original notice was not executed according to local domestic law, and that the entire process should start again. Mr Hunt was advised at the time by his very experienced lawyers in Mexico that that conclusion was wrong. It certainly was not consistent with international law, and his advisers pointed out that the judge, in his ruling, did not refer at all to The Hague convention and overlooked several aspects of amparo legislation as well.

On 11 August this year, Mr Hunt’s lawyers submitted an appeal to the federal court. The appeal panel of three federal judges in San Luis Potosi upheld Mrs Hunt’s amparo on 11 November on the grounds that she was not notified of the return order made by the first family judge under the terms of The Hague convention 1980. Of course, she was in fact well aware of the order: she had been engaged in challenging the initial judgement, and she would not have been in a position to do so if she had been unaware of the order.

Mr Hunt has now been told that a new Hague hearing will be scheduled for 26 March next year in San Luis Potosi. He is understandably worried that, although a date has been set, there is nothing to stop his wife from once again embarking on a series of amparos and appeals, as the previous three years of litigation have been rendered null and void by the court’s decision. If legal proceedings were to stall again, there would be an argument that Lydia was by now settled in Mexico and any enforced return would be detrimental to her welfare.

It may be appropriate that the amparo process gives rise to limited delays, but in this case the process has continued for more than three years, and it is now set to last even longer, even though it clearly makes a nonsense of Mexico’s obligations under The Hague convention.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

As chair of the all-party Mexico group, I am pleased to support what my right hon. Friend is doing and compliment him on the huge amount of work that he has done—and, indeed, the Foreign Office on the pressure that it has applied in the case of the Mexican Government. He and I are due to meet the ambassador in January, when we will obviously press the ambassador to insist that Mexico adhere to all its obligations under The Hague convention.

My right hon. Friend is making a most serious point—that a further delay in the amparo at San Luis Potosi in March will mean that it could be argued that this child is a normal resident of Mexico. That is the danger. This is, bluntly, a case of abduction. We look to our friends in the Mexican Government and Mexican judiciary to adhere to international conventions and law and to allow this child to be returned to this country. She is, after all, a British national.

[Stephen Timms]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for the support that he has given in this case. I very much look forward to the meeting with the ambassador in January. The fact that that meeting has been put in the diary is in no small part thanks to my hon. Friend’s intervention. He is absolutely right, of course.

The heart of this debate is Lydia’s welfare and well-being. She was two when she was abducted. I have no idea what she has been told about the whereabouts of her father or about what became of her former home in the UK. She has had no contact at all with her father for more than three years. There has been no effort to enable her to meet, or even to speak, to her father throughout the whole of that period. The preamble to The Hague convention states that signatories should be

“firmly convinced that the interests of children are of paramount importance in matters relating to their custody desiring to protect children internationally from the harmful effects of their wrongful removal or retention and to establish procedures to ensure their prompt return to the State of their habitual residence as well as to secure protection for rights of access”.

Signatories to the convention are required to consider the interests and the welfare of an abducted child as being of paramount importance. That has clearly not happened in this particular case.

One consolation to my constituent would have been if a welfare check ordered by the British Embassy had been carried out. That check has not been carried out because of a number of difficulties in trying to do so, and despite an intervention on the part of Bob Geldof. My constituent has not only not had the chance to see or to speak to Lydia in the past three years, but has not even been able to establish whether she is safe and well.

Mr Hunt’s hopes were raised when his wife failed to “ampere” a criminal charge, which meant that an arrest warrant could finally be executed. That would have allowed the police to locate her and require her, by the terms of bail, to give an address where she lives with her daughter. Unfortunately, the warrant has still not been executed. The whereabouts in Mexico of Mrs Hunt’s family are known to the police. The family well knows where she and Lydia are; and the police could, if they chose, quite readily find out from the family where she and Lydia are. It seems highly unlikely that they do not know where she is, but the warrant, for whatever reason, has not been implemented.

Obviously, the British Government cannot interfere directly with the legal processes of another country. However, the fact is that despite Mexico’s having signed The Hague convention, Lydia has yet to be returned. The website of The Hague Conference on Private International Law describes the convention as

“a multilateral treaty, which seeks to protect children from the harmful effects of abduction and retention across international boundaries by providing a procedure to bring about their prompt return”.

The convention has clearly been flouted in this particular case. Many abduction cases are resolved promptly, but some cases, such as this one, are held up because countries refuse to comply with the terms of The Hague convention, even though, like Mexico, they have signed it. A flagrantly non-compliant country can still press other treaty partners to fulfil their obligations and return children who have been abducted from their own country.

A disappointing aspect of my involvement in this case is that it has not yet been possible for me to meet the Mexican ambassador. I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for his intervention. I am pleased, as he said, that we now have an appointment with the ambassador in January.

Child abduction is becoming more common. Reunite International child abduction centre, which has been working with Mr Hunt over the past three years, tells me that until September this year, the number of abduction cases reported to its advice line was up by 46% compared with the same period last year. The number of prevention cases went up by 35% in the same period. The problem of non-compliance will be suffered by many other parents in the future—parents who, like Mr Hunt, have had their children abducted to countries that signed The Hague convention only to find it time-consuming and expensive to pursue a return, as has Mr Hunt. My constituent has so far spent more than £80,000, mainly in legal costs, in attempting to secure his daughter’s safe return. It could well be that he will have to find a similar sum again, given that it appears that we are back at square one as a result of the most recent court decision.

I noted recently that a Republican Congressman in the United States, Chris Smith, the long-serving representative for Robbinsville, New Jersey, has sponsored a Bill on this topic. The International Child Abduction Prevention and Return Bill proposes the establishment of an office on international child abduction, which would report regularly on progress in individual cases and on the compliance of countries with their obligations under The Hague convention. The Bill would vest powers in the President, allowing him to impose specific sanctions to increase pressure to end cases of non-co-operation. Perhaps we should consider something similar in the UK. That initiative in the United States Congress underlines that, as a signatory to The Hague convention, the UK is not alone in struggling to ensure that non-compliant nations meet their treaty obligations.

I will finally pose three questions to the Minister. First, what assistance can the British embassy provide to the Mexican authorities in their search for Mrs Hunt? I know that a letter was sent by the attorney-general in San Luis Potosi to the attorney-general in Mexico City asking that he instruct the police, who are under his jurisdiction, to locate Mrs Hunt and arrest her. That would, in turn, allow the British embassy to conduct the long-awaited welfare check on Lydia. Mrs Hunt must be obliged to give recognised contact details, which would enable the process of returning Lydia under the terms of The Hague convention to get under way.

Secondly, can the Minister assure me that he will continue to raise this case with the Mexican authorities, as he has on a number of occasions, and to impress on them the importance of meeting the obligations that they have signed up to under The Hague convention, which they are not currently fulfilling? I was pleased to learn that Lord Justice Thorpe, who leads on these matters for the UK judiciary, has offered his assistance to the Mexican authorities in complying with their obligations under The Hague convention, and that he plans to raise this case in The Hague next month at a meeting convened for the purpose.

Finally, what steps can be taken against countries, such as Mexico, that are non-compliant in this way? It is clearly not right for a treaty partner not to fulfil its obligations as set out in an international treaty that it has signed freely, and which it will be able to take advantage of when it wishes to do so. What recourse is available when a signatory to an international treaty—this one or others—does not fulfil its obligations under that treaty? What specific action can the UK Government take to address Mexico’s non-compliance in this particular case?

Legal aid

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Stephen Timms

Tuesday 14th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be under your chairpersonship, Mrs Riordan. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) on securing the debate.

When legal aid was first introduced in 1949, the late Arthur Skeffington said that the law at that time was like the Ritz, in that those who could afford to pay had access to it, while those who could not did not. Legal aid was introduced, and it is fundamental to giving everybody in this country access to justice.

When the Green Paper came out, paragraph 1.2 of the summary said:

“The Government strongly believes that access to justice is a hallmark of a civil society”,

which is great. The problem is the rest of the Green Paper; it starts well, but it is all downhill after that. We need to examine a number of issues relating to the Green Paper.

The background has to be that cuts were already being made in legal aid, and many of us in the Chamber who were in the previous Parliament were very concerned about that. Indeed, we raised those concerns consistently with Ministers, because the cuts were leaving the most marginalised, vulnerable people with no redress whatever through the legal system. That deeply concerns me.

The cuts have been accompanied by a series of ill-informed, unfair media attacks on the entire legal profession and the legal aid system, which have been led by the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and the Evening Standard. Those newspapers routinely print isolated and outrageous figures about payments to some barristers, while at no time looking at the reality of the number of legal aid firms that are paid so little that they can no longer afford to represent anybody and have gone out of business. In inner-urban areas such as the one that I represent, which is the eighth poorest part of the whole country, many people simply cannot get any representation whatever, because there is no legal aid lawyer to deal with them.

Let me quote from a letter dated 1 October 2010—many colleagues will have seen something similar at various times. It says:

“URGENT INFORMATION

CLOSURE OF

SHEIKH & CO SOLICITORS

Non practising as of Midnight on 30th September 2010”

It continues:

“We were unable to secure viable indemnity insurance despite our best efforts particularly in view of uncertainty surrounding the legal aid contracts and so it means Sheikh & Co cannot provide legal services any more.”

This was a busy local practice dealing with a whole range of issues, including housing, immigration and family and education matters, and its closure left thousands of people with no representation. Their files will be passed on through the appropriate body to another solicitor, but that solicitor may go under, and the files will then move on to somebody else and somebody else again. Along the way, they will be lost, which means that very poor and vulnerable people will be left without any representation whatever.

I am proud to represent my constituency in Parliament. I am also proud of Islington law centre, which does fantastic work. When I visited it a couple of weeks ago, the director told me that a

“10% cut across the board is being proposed”

in its Legal Services Commission contract funding and that

“we have been cut hard in both housing and employment, where, although we were ranked first in terms of our tender score, we have been given a much smaller contract from mid-November than we had previously”.

The director added that that will mean

“250 less employment clients per annum that we can help, and 185 less housing clients. I expect the total cut next year to be around £130,000,”

which is more than two full-time equivalent caseworkers. That is a busy law centre, which is doing its best. Such events could be replicated all over the country at hard-working law centres.

When the Minister replies, I hope that he will recognise the value of law centres and the need to give them support and funding.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

rose—

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I also hope that he will recognise that, without law centres and legal aid practices at solicitors, many of our most vulnerable constituents will simply go without any access to justice whatever.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Actually, Mrs Riordan, I was giving way to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). I was not concluding my contribution. If you want me to conclude, I suppose I must, but I would be grateful if you gave me just a bit more time.

[Stephen Timms]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and to you, Mrs Riordan.

I wanted to pick up my hon. Friend’s point about advice services. I wonder whether it struck him, as it struck me, that the Green Paper suggests that costly legal advice can be substituted with much less costly voluntary advice services. The problem is—and the author of the Green Paper does not seem to realise it—that most such voluntary services are themselves funded by legal aid, and that that funding will go if the proposals are implemented.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, which is true. Legal aid funding goes through law centres, Citizens Advice and all kinds of other advice agencies, which will be cut. In any event, none of the advice services’ funding is ring-fenced in local authority terms. I have done a head-count audit of my borough, and there is probably less one-to-one advice available than there was 25 years ago. I suspect that colleagues could tell similar stories. We need fair access to justice.

The Law Society briefing for the debate is very good. It notes:

“The cuts in scope and eligibility for civil legal aid will mean that many fewer people will be able to bring cases to court”.

It continues by pointing out that

“solicitors will either find other areas of work or ‘cherry pick’ cases”.

We have many brilliant law students in this country—many brilliant young people who want to go into law and do their very best. They often end up, whether they want to or not, doing property and commercial law, because that is where the money can be made and where they can get work. They do not do legal aid because there is not enough money around to do it with. There are not enough companies doing legal aid work. So we have amazing levels of representation for well-off people, in commercial or corporate cases, but we do not have the same availability for criminal, housing, immigration or family cases.

There is a lot that I could say, but I take your earlier hint, Mrs Riordan—you do not want me to go on too long. It was very subtly put, if I may say so. I have two quick points that I want to make. The idea of separating family law cases so that legal aid will be given if violence is involved, but not if there is no violence, is utterly absurd. I am sure that we have all seen how families can implode under many pressures. The degeneration of a relationship into a battle and a court case can get very nasty. Mediation does not always work—of course we all want it to, but it does not always. That can degenerate into violence. If sensible, effective legal advice is available at a much earlier stage, much of that degeneration into something far worse can be prevented.

I am pleased that the Green Paper specifically excludes any cut in representation for asylum cases. I welcome that and pay tribute to the Minister for it. Those who face deportation in asylum cases, possibly with the prospect of death or torture on their return to where they have come from, deserve legal aid. I absolutely defend that, and I am sure—or at least hope—that every hon. Member in the Chamber would too.

However, in immigration cases, which are often very complicated, legal aid is limited; it is available for dealing with detention, but not for the case itself. A family who are put in detention—quite wrongly, in my view, if children are involved—can get legal aid to try to get out of detention, but not to deal with the burden of the case. That seems a non sequitur; either we support immigration cases or we do not. I hope that the Minister will recognise that the injustices surrounding that state of affairs, in particular with regard to applications under articles 6 and 8 of the European convention on human rights, are very important and that such cases deserve legal aid.

The late Sir Henry Hodge, who was a judge at the immigration appeal tribunal, constantly made references to the Legal Services Commission wanting sufficient resources to make representation available. An immigration appeal where there is no representation for the applicant, but there is representation for the Home Office, is unbelievably, blatantly and obviously unfair. It is not a credible way of doing things.

I urge the Minister to think again, seriously, about those aspects of the matter, and to remember the principle of access to justice for all. That will not be possible if the cuts go through.