Question posted in the Family Law category relating to Western Cape
Good evening, asking on behalf of a friend. Two police officers arrived at her home this afternoon with her ex husband. The police officers did not identify themselves nor did they say from which police station they were. They handed her a warrant for her arrest (which they took with them when they left) because she is not allowing her ex husband visitation rights every 2nd weekend as prescribed by the court. They said they will be back at her house tomorrow at 5pm, and if she does not hand over her daughter to the father they will arrest her. There is good reasons for mom not allowing visitation without supervision. Ex husband was recently in jail (Pretoria Central) for 14 days for assaulting his current wife, he did not visit his young daughter for 2 years and is not paying any maintenance (also defined in the court order). All she want to do is talk with dad alone to share some rules and discuss some thing with him before handing over her daughter for an unsupervised weekend (the first weekend in years his wanting to see his daugther), but he refuse to talk to her. She has a copy of the court order. My question is: Can the police just arrest her and hand the child to the father without getting social services involved for a proper investigation? A child is involved here. Something does not seem right. Kindly advise
Message from the Lawyer
Hi there,
I see that you haven't made a payment for the question, but I'm going to assist you a little. If you want to ask a follow-up question, please make the required payment.
I doubt that it was a legally issued warrant of arrest, because only a Magistrate can issue such a warrant, and in your friend's situation, it would have to be after a contempt of court application, which your friend would have had to have been notified about!
So I think that something is very suspicious with the SAPS arriving and flashing a warrant.
Also, if the ex-husband has a court order allowing unsupervised visits, your friend must comply with that, or apply to court to vary the court order.
Att. Patrick
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