The separation of Divorce from Child Support and Access is a necessity. A Divorce, general settlement of the break-up of a couple, may be handled in a higher court. The careful consideration of the well-being of the child(ren) is best handled with a much different focus. The cort of Family law must be the definitive court for settling disputes over access and support arguments. If an appeal to a higher court is deemed necessary any judgement the higher court is followed as an advice to the lower court and is only valid what the situation exists. The lower court will provide simpler access to changes in circumstances. Simple forms may be used to vary support amounts and access orders eliminating the necessity for lawyer involvement. Though there is provision for this in the system now, if the order was made in a higher court the Family Court has no authority to vary any aspect of the agreement. The Family Court, Mediation, and Child Support agency must be one atomomous organisation pro-actively sharing judgements and communications.
Upon discovery of pregnancy the mother must inform the father by any
provable means that will establish the father's responsibility for the
child. If the father is not located by the time of birth, newspaper ads may
be placed in no less than 3 major newspapers. The ads must run for 30-days
or until the father responds, whichever is less. If no response is offered
the father is assumed to have been notified and is at that point responsible
for support. The father may contest this if he can establish all atempts to
notify him had failed and he was not evasive in manner.
If the father is found before the assumption of responsibility he must
choose to accept responsibility for support or recommend either the
termination of the pregancy(where and when applicable) or adoption, thereby
ceasing his obligation to the child for support. The mother may follow the
recommendation but the choice remains hers. The father is no longer afforded
any rights to the child.
If the father later requests access, beyond a casual visit, the mother may
choose to request back support for the timeframe that the father has been
absent and establish on-going support. The father cannot then abandon the
child a second time financially. The mother may chose to deny access and
this will be supported by the courts, denial of access will deny any pursuit
of support.
If the mother fails to notify the father, the father may reject his parental
responsibility for the child if it is discovered later in life. If the
mother does not pursue notification of the father after first knowledge of
the pregnancy she waives any right to pursue the father for support. If he
does not reject his responsibility upon this discovery, his support will
proceed from the date of this discovery. In this scenario no support can be
claimed if the child is over the age of 18.
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Updates:
The child should gain the right to inquire about the father and pursue that
relationship. The father may not be responsible for support at that point.
There seems to be little forgiveness for bad luck, falling on bad times
where income doesn't exist. In a marriage hard times are dealt with as a
team yet judges and governments feel the ncp is cheating the cp by not
working. The unfortunate thing is that some people set the stage for this by
doing just that. They quit, or get themselves fired and do all they can to
evade the responsibility to pay CS.
There's a prejudice towards NCPs because of those NCPs that do everything in
thier power to avoid paying a reasonable amount, in time the reasonable
amount has become unreasonable. The Child-support guidelines and the systems
that support it are geared toward dealing with "deadbeats" that don't want
to pay. There's a need for the system, for those people who can't face the
responsibility and those people are the people Ms. Hilary Clinton is angry
at. The problem lies in the prejudice she holds or fuels that all NCPs are
criminals.
The tax payer will not stand for an increased cost to the system that
ensures payments, the system itself needs a social-worker aspect, a family
counsellor aspect, tha can work with both parents to ensure the parents are
being parents and splitting the parental duties fairly. The Child
Support/Custody Order should be passed to this organisation and the funds be
pooled for child-care. Income, be it from welfare, unemployment insurance,
interest, or a job, should be considered on both sides. Too often the CP
considers the children as posessions, but this is another area of
discussion. If the system was run effectively enough it might be considered
a goverment run bank. The income from both parents is funneled into this
"bank", the transfers are adjusted to separate the child-care base-amount
into a pooled "account" then the paycheck is passed on to the respective
parent's real bank. This only accomodates direct-deposit workers, the
extension of this would be complete integration with banking systems where
any deposit would be re-routed through this system.
This sounds huge, and orwellian to many I'm certain some of you are cursing
about my suggestion. The key is that accountability is in place. If CP lives
in a $2000/month home and lives off welfare, with undisclosed income
sources, the social worker is responsible for adjusting the formula. The
possibility of crooked social-workers is possible so you need a supervisor
structure and a simple method for a NCP to raise the flag if there's
something wrong. The cost of this would be huge but rather than have the
tax-payer cover this, a small percentage of the net income of both parties
pays for it. Suppose that the combined income for August was $3000, The
amount of CS might be $500, the CS surcharge might be an additional $60 to
150. The reality is that the CP made $1000 and the NCP made $2000, He paid
2/3 of the $500 (333.33) and she paid the remainder ($166.5). Same goes for
the surcharge, $40 and $20 respectively. Oh, BTW... The $500 is based on
some guideline, but it's realistic and shared. The $500 would still go to
the CP but the NCP could file costs against it for reasonable expenses. The
social worker has the say.
The Social Worker is expensive, If I estimate a social worker's wage at
$20/hour, The surcharge would cover 36 hours. There may be additional
charges for social-worker involvement, say the system allows 15-20 hours of
assistance included in the service. Anything more would be chargable with
the option bank hours year-to-year. Less problems, less cost? They might get
a credit when they fisih the CS process.
These are just ideas... comments are welcome, but fairness is expected.
Updates:
How do you determine the whether "hard-times" are real?
How do you punish a true deadbeat dad?