UPDATE: Court of Appeals suspends return of boys in international custody dispute

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The Court of Appeals of Eastern Finland has suspended the planned return of two boys who are the focus of an international custody dispute from being returned to their American father.
      The Kuopio-based court decided shortly before noon on Friday to agree to the suspension requested by the boys’ Finnish mother Outi Koski.
      Koski had appealed a previous decision by Kajaani district court, which had rejected her complaint about the actions of police when the boys, aged 10 and 13, were apprehended from a farm where they had been hiding with their mother.
     
In a decision handed down on Thursday, Kajaani District Court rejected the appeal brought on by Koski
      The appeal, calling or the suspension of the boys’ return to their father, John Rogers.
      After Thursday’s decision, Koski appealed to the Court of Appeal of Eastern Finland to suspend the implementation of the order.
      The court gave its temporary ruling without hearing testimony from the boys or their father. The decision means that the boys cannot be sent back to South Carolina until the court rules on the mother's complaint, or makes another ruling.
     
In Thursday’s ruling, Kajaani District Court found that the boys’ right to self-determination was not violated when they were taken from their hideaway in Ristijärvi last week.
      The two had expressed their opposition to being sent back to the United States, and all witnesses have said that they are very mature for their ages.
      However, the court ruled that the 12-year age limit for taking the child’s views into consideration in matters such as these is not an ironclad rule. The key issue is whether or not a child has been capable of forming a genuine opinion.
      In the view of the court, it was not possible to make a clear determination of this in the situation in which the boys were apprehended, and that keeping them in hiding would not have been in the interests of the children.
      The court also found that the police did not use excessive force in the operation, which was implemented under very exceptional circumstances.
     
The custody dispute between Outi Koski and John Rogers has been going on for several years.
      In the summer of 2003 the mother came to Finland with the boys for a holiday, and decided not to return to the USA. Later a US court granted the father sole custody, and in March this year Rogers came to Finland and took the children to Paris, where a French court ordered them sent them back to Finland.
      The Helsinki Court of appeals ruled that the two could remain in Finland, but the Supreme Court overturned the decision and said that they should be returned to the United States under the terms of the Hague Convention on child abduction prevention.
      Several attempts were made to implement this decision in Espoo, but the mother prevented each one. Finally she took her sons to a hiding place in Ristijärvi more than 600 kilometres north of Helsinki, where they were apprehended on Wednesday last week. Officials have not disclosed their whereabouts, but have said that they are in psychiatric care.
     
John Rogers says that he has lost his faith in the Finnish system of justice. The mother, Outi Koski, says that she cannot return to the United States, where she faces an arrest warrant for child abduction.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Court suspends return of boys at centre of international custody dispute (25.10.04)
  Mother files criminal complaint in Finnish-American child custody case (22.10.2004)
  Boys at centre of custody dispute apprehended at remote farm (21.10.2004)
  New development in custody case of Espoo brothers (17.9.2004)
  Supreme Court final ruling: Custody dispute brothers to be returned to their father in U.S. (3.9.2004)

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