07.08.2009
Khalid Skah
The
Olympic Champion attacked by “Royal Lions”
– the Norwegian legal system
In
After his
Olympic victory in
The commando attack
According
to Wikipedia and Sudan Vision, a few weeks ago (June
21 2009) armed men (likely being secret Norwegian commandos, which
you might find other places in the world acting in different Royal missions)
broke in to Mr. Skah’s apartment, grabbed his two
minor children aged 13 and 16, and transported the kids to the Royal Embassy of
Norway or to the ambassadors residence in Rabat, Morocco, where they stayed for
some three days until the chartered ship was ready to set sail for Spain.
According
to the Associated Press (AP), referring from a Governmental statement, the children in
question is of Moroccan nationality, they are minors, and they cannot leave
national territory without the authorisation of their father.
After sun comes rain
Some time
after the couple had settled down in
The plan
Presenting
a “legally enforceable document” from
a Norwegian court to Moroccan authorities, Hopstock
knew her chance to have full access to their children would redouble, which in
turn would ease her way to have the children “transported” to her country, the
Kingdom of Norway, if necessary with the help from the embassy or whatever
means that would be required to have the children moved from A to B.
Furthermore such a legal document was her ticket to the press, to ignorant
Norwegian journalists who never question anything that taste of “binding”
judicial decisions.
Making hell
First step
for Hopstock was to file the standard criminal
complaint against the always and everlasting mean EX (which for some obscure
reason always changes character just before a break-up), doing whatever to get
it her way. According to Verdens Gang, she filed the
criminal complaint in
Hopstock
stated that she also was in mortal danger and that she had been threatened by Skah, but this serious and continuous threat didn’t stop her
from paying Skah a visit kicking a hole in his front door while he was at home.
Reading
the news about this case, it seems that Hopstock
didn’t file any criminal complaints against Skah in
In June
2009, two years later, the kids were still alive, and still in mortal danger according to the scorned ex-wife.
Mortal
danger? Well, why not, this is eaten raw by the judges and the media in
Acquiring a judgment
As a lawyer
(we have to rely on Wikipedia here) Hopstock knew that it would be a piece of cake to get a
judgment in her favour from a Norwegian court, and she would have no problem
getting this in secret either. So next step was then to file a
custody-/parental rights-case against her ex, and in 2008 Oslo City Court
hurriedly passed their default judgement – as expected – giving Hopstock full custody over their children.
Making more hell
To help
the news readers to believe Hopstock’s story, Skah has been accused of kidnapping the children.
Kidnapping, that’s a serious crime, but it is as serious to accuse someone of
doing this if it is not true.
So, where
is the evidence of the alleged kidnapping in this story? Hopstock
married to a – to her – foreigner. They chose to relocate to
How to solve a problem: What to do and what not to do
Anyway, if
Hopstock feels that she is a much better parent than Skah, and thus thinks it’s the stupidest question ever to
ask who the children should live with, then she is free to file a parental
rights case in Morocco, as Norwegian courts is not an option.
Assuming
that both parents are Norwegian, living in Norway, fighting over their
children, then – according to the Norwegian Childrens
Act
§36, second section – it is up to the court to decide where the children
are to live. Thus it is not for Hopstock to decide
this by herself, neither is it up to the Roayl
Embassy or the Minister of foreign affairs.
There are
several important facts in this case in which consequences the media has not
written much about, e.g. that the family have relocated to
None of
these three conditions are fulfilled as both Skah as
well as his children are domiciled in
This
didn't stop the Oslo City Court from admitting this inadmissible case. But of
course, when you are “taking care of”
the judge (which is not unusual in
Service of judicial documents abroad
The
document – whether it is a writ of summons or any other judicial paper – could
then have this travel path: the court
signs its decision (anyone that has got a decision/judgement from Norway should
be aware of the fact that judgements/decisions in Norway are rarely signed by
the judges, or by anyone else for that matter, consequently the decision is
null and void) and dispatch it to the Ministry of Justice è Ministry
of Foreign Affairs è
diplomatic/consular representation in Morocco (somewhere on this trip the
document has to be translated into the language of the State of destination) è Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, Morocco è
Ministry of Justice, Morocco, if accepted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
If the
Moroccan Ministry of Justice accepts the document and the decision – after
having assessed the document and having tried its merits[1]
– the document is ready to be served according to Moroccan rules, most likely
by the competent authority/judicial officer.
Normally a
Norwegian judicial officer/judge would just send the decision by ordinary mail
to the addressee, in Norwegian, and then hastily conclude that the document is
served, this according to Norwegian procedural law, which by the way does not
apply in other countries.
There are
reasons to believe that this Norwegian decision which has been used as some
sort of a door opener to the press as well as to get Governmental assistance in
kidnapping these children to
·
Norwegian courts have no
jurisdiction.
·
The writ of summons has not been
served.
·
The summons to the main hearing
has not been served.
·
The court deprived Skah’s rights to be heard (lack of contradiction)
·
The judgement is not signed.
·
The judgement is not served.
·
The judge has neither signed the
mandatory oath to the King (see the Norwegian Constitution
§ 21) nor the oath swearing the judge in (see the Norwegian Procedural
Act §60). In this regard these two articles in Norwegian (I and II) will give you an idea on how big this problem is in
From years
of experience of the chaotic Norwegian legal system, as well as three victories
in Strasbourg against Norway, this is my educational assumption. I might be
wrong on some of the details, but I am almost 100% sure that this judgement
will not hold water and thus is legally not binding even if the Norwegian court
had jurisdiction.
Norwegian Government – How to handle this matter
The
Norwegian Government can still find its way out of this mess which their
Minister of foreign affairs has put the country in, by intervening in
accordance with the Norwegian Procedural Act, §37,
which in brief says that:
If a court
has admitted a case, and this case is not subject to Norwegian jurisdiction,
the Government can lodge an objection and declare an appeal to the Supreme
Court in order to have the administration of the case as well as the decision
declared null and void.
* * *
Some obstacles on (in) the way
There is
no need for an in-dept judicial review in order to point out and remind about a
few procedural obstacles in this case: If the family had relocated, as stated
in Wikipedia, the decision from Oslo City Court is worthless
and serves no purpose due to a lack of Norwegian jurisdiction.
And just
for the sake of the exercise: Did the Oslo City Court serve the writ of
summons? Did the Oslo City Court summon Mr. Skah
properly (that is; did they serve the judicial documents?) and according to
traditional international rules to the main hearing?
I dare
answer this on behalf of Skah and say no, they most
likely didn’t. The consequence – if so – is that this decision from the Oslo
City Court has no legal power what so ever even if the Norwegian courts had
jurisdiction over the matter.
More on the Norwegian legal system – corruption
When it
comes to certain groups of persons the Norwegian legal system acts as there
were no rights to govern or to protect. Skah is
unfortunately in several of these groups.
Year after
year
According
to the AP referred to in Miami Herald, the Ambassador (and jurist) Bjorn Olav Blokhus handed over
the children to Hopstock without knowing she intended
to bring them to Norway, that is; without understanding that this Norwegian
person was about to violate Moroccan and international law by kidnapping the
kids. On top of this the jurist (and former secretary to the ambassador Egil Winsnes in
"They
were underaged. They had Norwegian passports. They
asked for protection. What could we do?"
Well, he
could have helped them contacting relevant national authority, like the police,
or something. If these kids really were in mortal danger, this would obviously
be a case for the police. And if there were any truth behind this allegation,
the police would be obliged to protect the kids. And if Gahr
Stoere feels that the Moroccan police does a lousy
job (compared to their sleeping colleagues in
To AP Hopstock’s representative, a lawyer Marte
Brodtkorb[2],
argued that Skah had held their children against
their will[3]
for more than two years, and that the kids had Norwegian passports, thus
suggesting that there were no legal problem with the cross-border
“transport-operation” of these kids. On the contrary, this was how it should be
done according to this lawyer.
She didn’t
tell the AP though that the kids were living in
What does this case tell us?
This case
more than indicates the legal chaos in the Norwegian legal system:
The
Norwegian public prosecutor has gone wild in
The Oslo
City Court has gone wild not only assessing legal matters without jurisdiction
but also wilfully depriving the other party’s rights.
The
Government and its diplomacy has gone wild in Morocco not only permitting its
staff to contribute in illegal and criminal actions in foreign jurisdictions
(Morocco and Spain), but also opening for a new practice where children of culturally
mixed families from now on can rely on the Norwegian foreign minister’s help in
any illegal actions on foreign soil, thus directly interfering in other state’s
affairs.
And finally
the press has – thanks to Hopstock – contributed in
this mess making it most likely impossible for the children to even think:
“This was not really what we wanted. We love our dad. We might have had our
disagreements, but we love him. What is happening around us? We don’t want to
see/we can’t face anyone after this.”
As for now
– while the kids daily must face this almost insuperable problem which the
media and Hopstock have created – they must be
thinking: “We love our dad but now we are almost forced to distance ourselves
from our father, agreeing on all the shit the news papers are writing about
him. Thank you for destroying our lives!”
What to do next?
Unforeseeable
problems will always be a factor in mixing cultures, especially when you reject
to educate yourself in these cultures thus being unable to handle the
“problems” when they occur. Both of the parents have to coop with this, making
their best effort in doing what is in the best interest for the “family” as a
whole.
If this
had happened between Norwegian parents the chance is though that none of the
parents would see their children again, as the Child Care institution (CCI) in an increasingly degree is intervening in ordinary
fights between parents over their children. A well known strategy from the CCI is to obstruct (with absolutely all means) the most
resourceful of the parents’ attempt of taking care of the child/children, thus
handing the child over to the less resourceful, which in turn will have to
inform (or by action or lack of action demonstrate to) the CCI
within some months or so that she/he is not capable of doing this alone. Then
the road is open for the CCI to take the child and
put it into one of the infamous and horrifying Norwegian institutions
destroying the kids for the rest of their lives.
Anyway,
the mother in this particular case, Hopstock, has by
far demonstrated that she is totally incapable of acting to the best interest
of the kids. Nevertheless, the only right thing to do is to re-establish the
legal situation as it was prior to the Hopstock-/Government-actions
and thus send the children back to their father in Morocco, and make sure, by a
Royal decree, that the kids can travel in and out of Norway without any
problems or risks of being kidnapped or in any other way harmed ever again.
Herman J Berge
Luxembourg
RettsNorge.no
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