A tiktok video with hundreds of thousands of views says that the Supreme Court of Pakistan recently ruled that if a woman remarries, she will automatically lose custody of her children from a previous marriage, with the guard transferred to the father.
The complaint is false. No judgment of this type has been made by the high level court in recent months.
Claim
On June 10, a user of Tiktok said: “According to the recent ordinance of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, a father is best suited to raise children and no other stepfather can be the child’s goalkeeper with the exception of the father.”
The user also suggested that the court had decided that the children should live with their father if the mother remarries, adding: “The children were therefore removed from the mother and given to the father.”
At the time of writing the editorial time, the video had been viewed more than 202,000 times, loved more than 15,600 times and shared more than 1,140 times.
Do
The complaint is false. No recent judgment of this type was rendered by the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
De facto check has examined all the orders adopted by the Apex Court since May, when the complaint began to circulate. Only one relevant affair was found and contradicted the viral complaint.
In this case, the father of two children, aged seven and eight, had asked for custody of the High Court of Lahore. His petition was rejected in favor of the mother, after which he approached the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court, in a judgment written by judge Mansoor Ali Shah and judge Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi, confirmed the mother’s custody. The Court ruled that a child is not a passive beneficiary of adult decisions, but an active holder of the rights whose voice must be heard and no other caregiver can reproduce the intuitive and emotional consistency of a mother.
The judgment also added that the employment of a mother does not decrease her aptitude as a guardian, he rather demonstrates resilience and the commitment to provide a secure and stimulating education.
The court ordered that the guard remains with the mother, granting the father of the rights of visit. In particular, both parents had remarried, but the court did not make its decision on this basis. Instead, he stressed that family courts must always prioritize the child’s superior interests and respect the child’s voice in terms of guard and guardianship.
Verdict: The complaint is false. The Supreme Court did not rule that mothers were automatically losing custody in remarriage. On the contrary, the court has reaffirmed that care decisions must prioritize the well-being of the child.
