If passed in the House of Assembly, the newly Gazetted 2016 Child Maintenance and Access Act would allow the Magistrates’ Court to withdraw child support funding directly from a negligent parent’s paycheque.
The legislation is designed to address some longstanding issues with child support payments throughout the territory.
Previously, the court’s only option for dealing with parents who were delinquent on maintenance order payments was incarceration, a response that some mothers have said does nothing to improve the financial situation for their children.
“If the fathers get arrested, us mothers still aren’t getting help,” one single mother told the Beacon in 2015.
This new legislation — read for the first time in HOA last month — would theoretically change that, allowing the court to take other measures designed to encourage child support payments besides incarceration.
Those measures include seizure of a negligent parent’s goods; direct deductions from paycheques and pensions; and suspension of any government-issued licences and permits.
Imprisonment can still be imposed if, after all of those other sanctions have been considered, a parent still wilfully refuses to pay child support and is proven to have the financial ability to do so.
See the Jan. 12, 2017 edition for full coverage.
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