Few things have such an impact on people’s life as what is happening in a court. As such great responsibilities are attached to people in these professions that have the potential to obliterate an individual’s existence. What I have encountered in the French legal system is mind-boggling to the extent that I have resigned from my position at an international organisation, a job that I truly enjoyed. Before and at the initial court hearing I have experienced following; A lawyer that breaches confidentiality rules and discusses my case with one of my colleagues at work, a police force that happily rubberstamp allegations for a divorcing party and not once contacts the person accused, a judge that thinks impartiality is something that is of less importance and appoints a close friend to my wife and her lawyer as an interpreter, a judge that thinks court filings in another EU member country are optional to consider, a judge that do not even consider once to have the written communication in a language that one of the parties understand. Apart from the sloppiness and incompetence that seems to flourish in these professions, the most damaging, however, is that the system encourages and rewards confrontational and devious behaviour which for sure will make the process very difficult for all parties particularly the children.

Just before Christmas in 2011 I was notified to appear before court on behalf of my wife’s wish to have a divorce. The notification came with a 43 page report in French, a language I do not speak. It might seem strange that a person can live over five years in a country without learning the language. However, after coming home from work most of the time past eight or nine o’clock at night and with some weekends spent at the office as well you have to make a choice. Either you take up a text book after 10-12 hours at work or you spend your time with your children and I have chosen the latter.

I asked a close colleague about potential lawyers and I went with her suggestion and contacted the first lawyer for bringing my case forward. As time was short we had a meeting two days later. I had already sent him the 43 page report in advance and I explained my point of view. I did not find my wife’s claims on alimony very satisfying. I might have been seen as a bit stingy not to accept my wife’s claim on 4,500 EUR in maintenance per month, so after some not so progressive discussions the lawyer was on the phone dialling someone and I asked whom, the answer was my colleague at work.

As I thought this was a bit too private to discuss with anyone else, I asked him to stop. He did so but I learned later on that he had called my colleague and discussed my case (this has also been confirmed by my colleague). I am not sure but in most countries a lawyer is bound by confidentiality, apparently not this one and I decided to change lawyer. He sent me a bill for his extraordinary execution of 2500EUR which has not been paid with the reminder that I will inform the authorities about his unorthodox working methods.

With little time left I approached a second lawyer and she accepted my case but informed me that she would be on holiday and that we could only have a short meeting before the appearance in the court, but she assured me that we would have the court hearing postponed so that we could prepare the case (which never happened). I PDF:ed the report of my wife and sent it to her by email. A rainy morning the 21st of December 2011 she showed up 25 minutes before the nine thirty meeting with the judge. As she flicked through my copy of the 43 pages it was apparent that she had not read the PDF I sent her and she asked me about how to plead in my case? She put on her cloak as this was the main thing to be a professional. This left me essentially without any defence.

I have learned that French divorce cases are run in the court by giving each of the married couple half an hour explaining the situation to the judge without any involvement of lawyers and a common hour where both parties including lawyers are present. I guess this common session is where the negotiations are made and discussions are backed up by those who know the legal framework. It turns out that the judge did not know that I do not understand French but he came up with an ingenious solution to appoint one of my wife’s and her lawyer’s close friend as an interpreter for me during this court appearance. I am not sure but in most countries the right to be heard and impartiality are important components of the legal system, apparently not with this judge.

I have had interpreters before but never a hostile one. I started out my session with the judge by trying to explain the situation but was cut short by the interpreter as she insisted that I could only answer the judge’s question and not make any argument that I thought was important for the judge to know. I then switched to English in the hope the judge has had some basic schooling in a second language. He hushed me down and told me to only use Swedish through the very impartial interpreter. So, I was never able to communicate the things that I thought maybe the judge should know which includes the following:

In the end of 2005 my wife wanted us to split up our assets. I agreed and we made this split fifty-fifty and at the same time we made a postnuptial agreement to separate our economies. At that time she had a relationship with another man and I was not willing to pay more than one trip Stockholm to Seoul (I have made mistakes myself in our marriage but never premeditated ones). The lump sum payment and the postnuptial agreement were important to me as they serve as insurance that I do not have to provide for my wife anymore and as a protection that what I acquire from that date on belongs to me. The postnuptial agreement was filed with the court in Stockholm in December 2005. She filed for divorce in March 2006, I accepted and she moved to another apartment. The Swedish divorce system stipulates that you need to have a grace period of 6 months and that you need to confirm the divorce before the end of the 12th month. My wife never confirmed the divorce and as I had moved abroad and was engaged in my work this confirmation procedure of the divorce never entered my mind.

A couple of month after filing for this divorce in 2006, I was fortunate to acquire a job at an international organisation based in Paris which carries substantial clout on the global arena. Despite the heavy workload I tried to fly back to Stockholm as often as I could to see my children. Once the money from the division of our property began to run out for my wife, things started to deteriorate in the home of my children. As I was concerned about my children’s welfare I asked my wife to move to Paris and she agreed. They all moved to Paris in July 2007 and as customary to Swedish law I had paid child support of around a 1000 EUR per month up to this date. So, the reason my wife was in Paris is related to my worry about my children. In hindsight this concern was a gross mistake considering how the French legal system works.

Nothing of this was communicated at the meeting with the judge since the interpreter was not very happy to convey any message that could put me in a more positive light and particularly convey anything that had a legal binding contract such as the postnuptial agreement filed by the Swedish court. So here I have been assigned an interpreter chosen by my wife and her lawyer to provide me the best of interpretations. My wife, her lawyer and the very impartial interpreter came together and they went together from the venue, likely laughing all the way to the bank. In conclusion this half hour session with the judge was not the most productive moments and because the way things were handled it has had a huge impact on me and my children’s life. The joint session with the lawyers and my wife could at best be described as a joke. During the one-hour session I was left totally without translation. The very professional interpreter apologised with a smile for not being able to interpret my sessions very well, which I think is a bit out of the ordinary even for an interpreter.

Apart from having a judge with little sense of basic human rights, the law enforcement in France is another party that seems to have little sense of doing their job in a correct manner. In the 43-page report put together by my wife the police figures prominently on several pages as she had made several visits to the nearby police station. So, while I am going to my work my wife is going to the police station with allegations that are rubber stamped by the not so suspecting police so that they could be included in the divorce file by my wife. I thought in my innocence that the police had some obligations to prevent crimes. At the first occasion they should of course have contacted me and asked me what on earth I was doing instead of rubber stamping allegations as if they were true. This might have saved my youngest daughter from a very traumatic moment in her life that I believe she will not forget. These visits to the police station were not only done to have official documents of my evil nature but also to set things up for what I describe as absolutely horrifying for me and my youngest daughter.

After an argument in a December morning my wife went downstairs and I put my daughter’s things for school together and sent her down with the elevator to her mother and started to prepare for going to work. A minute later the doorbell rang; I opened and outside stand 8 policemen who had apparently been running up the stairs to my apartment on the 4th floor. They looked very aggressive and asked for identification. I provided the diplomatic id that comes with being employed at the organisation I work for. After that and some discussions in broken English they started calm down a bit as I guess they did not find the lunatic they expected to be roaming the apartment. They apologised for disturbing me and tried to initiate some talk between me and my wife. Before going to work I looked outside my balcony and noted three police cars and of course a number of neighbours standing looking on at what was going on. Most disgusting of all, this misery has been witnessed by my youngest daughter.

I guess all this has been done by my wife on the advice of some deranged lawyer who has little appreciation of what such a horrifying experience will do to a 10-year old girl. At this age your father is the god, seeing all this will make scars for the rest of her life. Even if someone wants to demonise someone to gain as much as possible in a divorce one has a responsibility for one’s action despite advices from less than scruples lawyers. I believe this was also an effort to force me out of the apartment which did not fall out as planned due to my diplomatic status. However, the effort served the purpose well to have me really tarnished and dragged deep in the dirt, a perfect setup for a divorce particularly in a country that rewards this type of actions.

I assume that the report includes allegations of me abusing my wife. This is very easy to refute by asking my children whether I usually go around and beating my wife. They are old enough to state that this is not the case. However, as the judge, upon request of my wife’s lawyer, decided that testimony by my children was not permissible, this way of clearing me from these accusations was effectively closed. The decision not to allow the children to be heard is a clear violation of the COUNCIL REGULATION (EC) No 2201/2003 (article 23b) and as such the divorce process should not be recognised by Swedish authorities. Apart from that, not once have the police asked me to clarify things or provide my side of the story. They did not even provide me the report or the nature of the allegations when I went to the police station myself to find out.

In addition to these police reports, my wife succeeded to put written statements together from our common friends that I believe do not put me in the best of lights. Some of the friends for whom I have treated for dinners in restaurants at several occasions (as I thought my wife was using them a bit too much to help my children to excel in classical music) made handwritten statements. Even the pastor of the Swedish Church succeeded to write something down on behalf of my wife. I guess they all have very good insights into our private life as my wife has informed them. Having one side of the story always makes things easier and all this is just to serve the purpose of dragging one of the parts in a divorce in the dirt. A legal system that encourages and rewards this kind of behaviour is way out of line as it not only affects the parents that are divorcing but more importantly it will in all circumstances have a very negative impact on the children as in my case. Unfortunately, I do not play these games.

As the judge did not give me the basic rights for anyone that appears in a court, to have the information in language that the person understands and to be given the right to be heard and to defend oneself, the judge made decisions about me and my children’s life based on the very unbiased contribution of my wife and her lawyer. The decision by the judge, constituting 8 pages in French, was translated into two sentences by my lawyer stating that I need to pay 550 EUR per month for each of my children and the judge rewarded my wife for her very nice report and actions with the neat sum of 2,400 EUR per month.

And the most damaging, the judge decided to take my children away from me with only a chance to see them every second weekend. This would leave me with no influence of bring my children up and only paying for my wife so she does not have to work as everybody else on this planet and all this despite having paid once before for all this in Sweden. The way things had been done in this divorce process and the judge decision left me with no options other than to leave the job in Paris.

In an effort to have some justice I had tried to move the process back to Sweden where we are married, where my children are born, where we all have our citizenship and passports, where we both still had our apartments and where mothers and fathers typically have the same right to take care of their children. However, a divorce in Sweden would of course also mean that my wife has to work and take care of her own life without any support from my side, so this was naturally rejected. The Swedish court denied this effort on the grounds that my wife had rushed to court first in France and as such the Swedish court had to dismiss the case.

However, for the first time I had a document in a language I understand as the Swedish court had translated the French judge’s decision into Swedish. Apart from the two sentences provided by my very professional lawyer, a couple of things that stand out in this decision follows; First, the judge reminded me that my wife has the rights to divorce me in three years before I can make any claims on divorcing her which means that the incentives to have this finished as quickly as possible to save our children some despair was not in the cards. Long divorce processes might be beneficial for the lawyer community but certainly not for the children.

Second, the judge did not only force me out of my apartment (I don’t know how legal this is since I was the only one in the family with diplomatic status) but also awards my wife all of my belongings that I have acquired over the years in Paris, violating the division of property and the postnuptial agreement filed by the Swedish court in 2005. Third, in the decision the judge prompts me that the maintenance obligations should be paid no matter of my income which essentially meant that I would be unable to move back to Sweden where 3,500 EUR per month is a fairly high salary in itself after tax and would thus be bound for life to work in France. I am not sure but I think forced labour was abandoned some time ago together with slavery. As the judge did not even bother to translate his judgements for me to understand what he had decided about my life it was a bit too late since I had moved back to Stockholm five months earlier.

A legal system that does not give people the basic rights, do not adhere to other countries court filings, encourages and rewards outrageous and confrontational behaviour, and do not have any considerations for children is not a system that I will have anything to do with. After experiencing all this I assume that most people would return to their home country and I am no exception even though I care much for my children and my work. And just to finish, it all started in October 2011 when I accidentally discovered in emails that my wife was having a very close relationship with another man and I asked her to move out of my life and apartment. Interesting what people can do for money and not having to work. In retrospect, as an economist I should have known that economic incentives play a decisive role in life but I could not imagine how corrupt these legal systems are…

I will inform my children about all this in due time.

30 January 2013,

Dr Hansson