Court date pushed to September 2nd

Swedish courts have agreed to postpone the next Johansson court hearing until September 2nd, providing the family and their choice counsel more time to successfully appeal the mid-June decision removing from the case the highly respected human rights lawyer Ruby Harrold-Claesson, president of the Nordic Committee for Human Rights.  The date for the new series of court challenges was originally fast-tracked and scheduled to be heard July 13 in Harrold-Claesson's absence.
 











As Friends of Domenic Johansson reported last month, Swedish courts banished Harrold-Claesson from the case after Domenic's appointed public "defender" (a position appointed by the court to represent the state) complained to the courts about Harrold-Claesson's participation. President of the Nordic Committee for Human Rights, Harrold-Claesson is a widely known and respected advocate for families in custody disputes with child protective services, and has won many such cases in Sweden, restoring dozens of children to the rightful arms of loving parents. She has since filed an appeal to her court ordered removal.

This new case, challenging the "keeping" of Domenic, was filed on behalf of the Johanssons by Harrold-Claesson just days before she was banished. The previous series of cases challenged the initial "taking" of Domenic. In those series of suits, the Johanssons were "represented" by court appointed counsel, resulting in Domenic's continued separation from his parents. It is for this very reason Christer Johansson has dismissed the original court appointed counsel and sought the hard-hitting Harrold-Claesson to represent him. 

June 25, 2010 marked the one-year anniversary of the violent seizure of the then 7-year-old child. So traumatized was Domenic by the acts of armed police on behalf of the Visby Social Services board, witnesses tell us he vomited during and shortly after the shocking scene when uniformed Swedish police stormed an India bound jetliner just moments before take off. We are told the boy's mother, Annie, collapsed during the assault. The family was emigrating to India, Annie's home country. 

By the end of 2009, the Johanssons had lost all their court appeals challenging the "taking" of their only child. In the December 2009 Chamber Court decision, the court sites as justification the fact that Domenic was home schooled (at the time legal in Sweden), that his parents chose to delay or forgo immunizations (also legal in Sweden) and that the boy had two cavities in his baby teeth.
 
Annie is a native of India. She emigrated with Christer to his native country of Sweden in 2001 after an earth quake hit India and the couple lost everything they owned in an attempt to start a small travel agency. At the time of the quake, Annie was pregnant with Domenic. The couple always planned to return to India where Annie's large family resides, and were finally doing so the day Domenic was seized.