Children spirited away to Hong Kong are unlikely to stay
Any parent who does a midnight flit with their kids will find the city is no legal black hole
Does Hong Kong have an effective legal system that can ensure the return of a child wrongly removed to, or retained in, the SAR by one parent to the other parent in the child's home country?
As a city with a large expatriate population, there is no question that Hong Kong needs such a system.
Hong Kong has been a signatory to the Hague Convention since 1997, and adopted the relevant articles in its Child Abduction and Custody Ordinance (CACO), enacted on September 5, 2007.
Hong Kong is certainly a pioneer in Asia for subscribing to the Hague Convention; Singapore signed up to it only at the end of 2010, and Japan's parliament just approved a treaty in May this year in order to join the convention.
It is also to Hong Kong's credit that it was chosen as the location for the Regional Office for the Hague Conference on Private International Law in Asia-Pacific, which opened last December.
Hong Kong has set a timeline of six weeks from the commencement of legal proceedings by the Secretary of Justice for the return of a child abducted from another Hague Convention signatory jurisdiction.
Applications for return can be made directly to the Department of Justice or through the central authority of the country where the child has been a habitual resident.