The Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, prioritised a child's emotional well-being over financial stability in a custody ruling.
A child’s stability and emotional well-being are more important than a parent’s financial superiority, the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, ruled, concluding that a five-year-old boy should remain with his mother in the rural Eastern Cape, rather than relocating to his father in Johannesburg.
“There is no warrant to uproot him from an environment in which he is now happy and settled, and to remove him from the only primary caregiver he has ever known,” Judge Stuart Wilson said.
He rejected an application by the father for the court to accept a recommendation from the Family Advocate’s office that the child should relocate to Johannesburg.
“The question is whether there is anything to be gained from forcing him to move back to Johannesburg after living there (in the Eastern Cape) for a year-and-a-half. On that point, the Family Advocate appears to accept that HMM’s (the father’s) superior financial position makes him the better caregiver. I cannot agree that this is all there is to the question,” Judge Wilson remarked.
