Legal guidance; restriction of child arrangements, parental responsibility, and surname change
In this article, we will explore important aspects of Family Law and Children, including domestic abuse, parental responsibility, and the implications of child arrangements
Restriction of child arrangements
The very first question to ask yourself is whether it is in your child’s best interests to maintain contact with the other parent
What is paramount is, what is the relationship like now between parent and child and, what are the risks to your child of this continuing?
The courts often address these issues and indeed have recently done so when the High Court considered very similar circumstances facing a family.
However, it is fundamentally important that any issues like this are, wherever possible, addressed between parents outside the court arena. Court gets very expensive, can cause delay, and a stranger (the judge) may have to make a difficult decision regarding your own private family arrangements that perhaps nobody will ultimately be happy with.
Therefore, it is essential that you get early legal advice regarding your own particular circumstances.
Respective parents have a right to share time with their children.
- Is there a relationship between parent and child? If there is, is it dangerous to the child’s welfare for this to continue at all?
- What is the risk of continuing contact with your child’s welfare, physically, emotionally, and educationally?
- Would any lesser step be of benefit to the welfare of your daughter rather than no contact e.g. indirect contact by letter/email, supervised contact, photographs of your child sent to the parent concerned?
Parental responsibility
Parents share parental responsibility regarding the upbringing of their children. Those are all rights, duties, powers, responsibilities, and authority attributable to your daughter.
Each parent is entitled to determine what is in the best interests of their child.
Ultimately, of course, if non-court dispute resolution fails, you can exercise your right to ask the court to consider what is in your child’s best interests, because of the potential impact of the parent’s behaviour on the welfare of your child.
The child’s interests are of paramount importance to the court. First and last consideration. Always.
Is it right for the law to remove or restrict a parent’s rights to contact and parental responsibility? Is this truly in the best interests of a child, whose fundamental right is to enjoy shared care from both parents?
All alternatives are explored first to protect all rights within the family if those remain in the best interests of the child
Removing these rights from a parent is a monumental decision for a court to make so please bear this in mind when considering how the law approaches this issue.
Removing Parental Responsibility
- What is the emotional attachment, if at all, between parent and child?
- What is the parent’s level of commitment to the child’s ongoing welfare?
- What steps has the parent taken to address their behaviour and mitigate ongoing risk?
- If the parent were to apply for parental responsibility today, would this be granted by a court?
These questions are not precedent in themselves but are derived from a wide range of safeguarding issues that the law is compelled to address when determining the best interests of a child.
It is rare for the law to sever all links between parent and child. For that to happen, overwhelming evidence of harm to the child’s ongoing welfare needs to be determined.
Change of the child’s surname
- Is there a good reason the formal biological link by surname should be severed?
- What has been the association between the parent concerned and the child since the registration of the name? Has it been closed? Ongoing? Sporadic? Non-existent?
- Does your child’s association with the father’s surname, cause harm by, e.g. stigma, to the emotional physical and/or educational welfare of your child if the surname remains?
It is important to understand that safeguarding is a fundamental aspect of child protection, rigorously enforced by the law in all cases of this nature.
All or any of these issues need to be addressed early by seeking independent legal advice. We have a whole team of professional experts who can help guide you to make sure you are heading in the right direction for your children.
We offer a free initial half-hour discussion for you to help you on your way. Do not hesitate to contact us.