home | update | oct 2007

"Once a Parent, Always a Parent"

What does being a mum or dad mean in legal terms?

Family breakdowns are an increasingly regular occurrence, as are children of unmarried couples and in both situations the issue of parental responsibility can come into question.

The main responsibility for deciding what should happen to children when their parents separate should always belong to the parents and in recent years the law has changed dramatically to recognise the rights of unmarried fathers in the care and upbringing of their child until he/she attains the age of 18.

Under Article 7 of The Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 parental responsibility is defined as “all the rights, duties, powers, responsibility and authority which by law a parent of a child has in relation to the child and his/her property”.

Any person with parental responsibility (and there can be more than one person) has the right to be consulted on such topics as:

• Education
• Religion
• Health
• Discipline.

A mother automatically has parental responsibility for her child, a father’s position is different and how easy or difficult it is for a father to have parental responsibility depends on whether or not he was married to the mother at the time of the child’s birth.

Married fathers at the time of birth automatically have parental responsibility but unmarried fathers have to acquire it. This can happen in a number of ways:

• If the child was born after the 15th April 2002 and the father is named on the child’s birth certificate, the father acquires parental responsibility.

• By way of an arrangement between the parents that the father has parental responsibility (i.e. enter into a “parental responsibility” agreement).

• If the father applies to the Court and the Court orders parental responsibility.

When the Court makes an order for parental responsibility for a father an application for contact and/or residency can follow on from it (and usually does).

Parental responsibility is not just limited to parents, there is a wide scope of persons who can have parental responsibility for a child but they have to apply to the Court for such an order.

Should you require any legal advice regarding children, or if you have any queries in relation to this article or any family related matter please contact Suzanne Rice LLB who is a member of the family law department.

Miss Rice has particular interest in Children Order applications both in private law (such as parental responsibility, contact, residency, prohibited steps and specific issue applications) and public law applications (such as Health and Social Services involvement in family life).