Do you have Parental Responsibility for your child? What does the term mean and how does it affect family life? Jonathan Flower, Head of Family Law at Ward Hadaway, looks at issue.
Parental Responsibility is defined under the Children Act 1989 as: “All the rights, duties, powers, responsibilities and authority which by law a parent of a child has in relation to the child and his property”.
The term and what lies behind it are important in family life, particularly since many families these days do not necessarily conform to the ‘nuclear family’ set-up of a married mother and father with their direct offspring. For example, what rights do you have as a step-parent when it comes to your partner’s children?
If you have Parental Responsibility, you can make important decisions concerning the child. Some examples include specifying the child’s religion, deciding which school the child should attend, consenting to medical treatment and naming the child or changing the child’s name.
A child’s mother has automatic Parental Responsibility. If you are the child’s father, you have Parental Responsibility if you were married to the child’s mother at the time the child was born.
If you are an unmarried father, you can acquire parental responsibility in a number of ways. These include obtaining a Parental Responsibility Order, signing a Parental Responsibility Agreement, by being named on the child’s birth certificate as the father of the child (after the 1st December 2003), by adopting the child, by marrying the child’s mother or by being named in a Child Arrangements Order as the person with whom the child is living.
A step parent can also acquire parental responsibility for a child if he is married to their parent (and their parent has parental responsibility) by obtaining a Parental Responsibility Order, by entering into a Parental Responsibility Agreement or by being named in a Child Arrangements Order as the person with whom the child is living with or spending time with.
At Ward Hadaway, we can advise you in relation to making an application to the Court for a Child Arrangements Order, a Parental Responsibility Order or in relation to adoption. We can also assist with the preparation of an Agreement.
Other people can acquire Parental Responsibility. For example, if you are the parent of a child you can appoint a Guardian who will acquire Parental Responsibility in the event of your death.
When making a Parental Responsibility Order, the child’s welfare is paramount and the Court has to consider the “no Order principle” i.e. whether the making of an order would be better than no order being made.
Case law has also been helpful. In the case of D v Hereford & Worcester County Council [1991] Fam 14 the court’s view was that the question to ask was: “Can this [father] show that he is the father to the child, not in the biological sense but in the sense that he has established or is likely to establish such real family tie with the [child] that he should now be accorded the corresponding legal tieÉ has he behaved, or will he behave with parental responsibility for the child”.
In another case, Re: H (Minors) (Local Authority: Parental Rights) (No.3) [1991] Fam 151, the Court of Appeal held that a number of factors should be taken into account including the degree of commitment which the Applicant had shown towards the child, the degree of attachment which existed between them and the reasons for applying for the order.
Parental Responsibility can come to an end automatically in certain circumstances. The Court can also make an order to terminate an unmarried father’s Parental Responsibility but only in exceptional circumstances.
