Nahla Stays Put – Court Denies Halle Berry’s Move to France with Child

After a yearlong custody battle between movie star Halle Berry and Canadian
model Gabriel Aubry, a California court has ruled that Berry cannot permanently
move 4-year-old daughter Nahla to France.

The couple split in 2010 and a heated custody battle quickly ensued. While
they appeared to have arrived at an amicable resolution earlier this year,
the battle was reignited by Berry’s proposed move to France with the child.

For his part, Aubry has hotly contested the child’s permanent removal
from the United States, describing it as punitive and a violation of his
custodial rights. In her request filed in the Los Angeles Family Court,
Berry stated that she was concerned for her safety and that of the child
since the two men who were stalking are free again.

People Magazine reports that
Berry has also claimed that the move would be beneficial for Nahla as it would remove the child from the persistent glare of the American
tabloid press.

While it appears that there will be no need to bid Berry “bon voyage”
anytime soon, her situation raises a common predicament faced by parents
who share custody of children.

In Ontario, the Supreme Court’s ruling in
Gordon v. Goetz governs decisions relating to mobility and custody. In that case, the
Supreme Court ruled that a custodial parent who seeks to relocate with
the child must demonstrate a material change in the child’s needs
or the parent’s ability to meet those needs that was not foreseeable
when the original custody/access order was made.

Once this threshold has been met and a material change established, the
court’s decision will turn on a consideration of whether relocation
would be in keeping with the child’s best interests.

The Court identified seven criteria to guide its analysis in this regard:

1. The existing custody arrangement and relationship between the child and
   custodial parent.
2. The existing access arrangement and the relationship between the child
   and the access parent.
3. The desirability of maximizing contact between the child and both parents.
4. The views of the child.
5. The custodial parent’s reason for moving, where it is relevant to that
   parent’s ability to meet the needs of the child.
6. The disruption to the child of a change in custody
7. The disruption to the child resulting from his or her removal from family,
   schools and the community he or she has come to know.

Clearly, the court’s criteria establish a factual and case-by-case
analysis of each unique situation to ensure that the child’s best
interests are indeed served in the result.