Facts
The appellant [X.] and the respondent [Y.] married in 1996 and have a joint daughter [Z.] , who was born in 1998. In 2006, [Y.] filed a joint divorce petition, and the marriage was finally divorced by judgment of February 28, 2011. In the context of regulating the ancillary consequences, the single judge placed the daughter under the parental care of [Y.] and deprived him of custody of the daughter. The appellant lodged an appeal against the judgment of the High Court of the Canton of Zurich, which dismissed her appeal.
The appellant requests that the high court judgment be set aside and the matter be referred back to the lower court for re-regulation of the child's interests. She claims that the High Court did not correctly establish the necessary facts because it did not question the daughter again itself, but simply relied on the expert opinion of Dr. [A.] .
Considerations
The Federal Court has to examine whether the High Court violated the right to be heard by not questioning the daughter again itself. The court has established that the daughter should have been heard by the court in principle due to her age, but that the High Court was entitled to refrain from questioning the daughter in person again based on the expert opinion of Dr. [A.] .
The Federal Court has further established that the questioning of the daughter by the judge himself and that by a commissioned third party are on the same level and that the judge should normally conduct the questioning himself, but should not systematically delegate it to third parties. The court has also established that questioning for the sake of questioning is to be avoided and that repeated questioning should be refrained from if this would mean an unreasonable burden for the child.
The Federal Court has…