Court Refuses to Recognize Saudi Custody Decree Due to Inconsistencies with American Public Policy

From The Washington Post:

Westlaw just posted this very interesting decision in H.L.K. v. F.A.A.; it was handed down by a Pennsylvania family court on Oct. 22, 2014, but wasn’t made available on Westlaw until yesterday. Note that the appellate court affirmed the family court’s holding, but it didn’t reach the public policy analysis: “Because we conclude that the family court did not abuse its discretion in declining to register the foreign custody order pursuant to Section 5445(d)(1), we need not decide whether the Saudi court’s order is contrary to public policy.”

The U.S. courts should indeed sometimes accept as given the judgments of foreign family courts, including judgments that are based on rules that we view as improperly discriminatory. If two Saudis (call them Hamid and Wafa) get divorced in Saudi Arabia, and one of them (Hamid) comes to the United States some years later, U.S. courts ought to accept the Saudi divorce decree, and (generally speaking) the Saudi child custody decree.

Read more here.