AUTOMATIC PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY

Fathers Should Be Given Automatic Parental Responsibility

Fathers Should Be Given Automatic Parental Responsibility

Introduction

Life shows us many different facets. Sometimes life shows us good and some other times it shows bad phases. There are few phases that life throws at us that leaves us in a perplexed state in which we do not know what to do and what not to do, what is right and what is not right. These are often the situations that involve our emotions, feelings and sentiments. Whenever, we are supposed to deal with an emotional situation we often forget or remain unable to take into account rational for right or wrong. In order to guide and to help us in making the right decisions there are rules, regulations and laws. The aim and objective of this paper is also to talk about regulations and prevalence of laws regarding one of the most important emotional situations that a human being can ever experience is of parental responsibility. So, the objective of this paper is to talk about the automatic parental responsibility in the context of family law.

Parental Responsibility

According to the Child Act of 1989, Section 3(1), parental responsibility can be defined as follows;

“All the authorities, rights, responsibilities, powers and duties that the parents of the child by law have with regard to the chid and his property” (Bruch 2001, 1).

Generally, it can be said that parental responsibility means holding the power to make important and imperative decisions about the life of the child. These important and imperative decisions include which school the child would go, where would the child be living, what would be the religion of the child, from where the child would receive the medical treatment etc (Bruch 2001, 1).

Who has Parental Responsibility?

As far as the automatic parental responsibility is concerned according to the provisions of the law the following situations suggests the automatic parental responsibility to mother and father (Lamb 2010, 31):

Birth mothers have automatic parental responsibility and they are not obliged to lose this responsibility even if they get divorced from their partners. Married birth fathers also have automatic parental responsibility and fathers are also obliged to continue this responsibility even after the divorce. Fathers of the child who is not married to the mother of that child then in such conditions fathers do not have automatic parental responsibility. Unmarried fathers can get the parental responsibility by taking one of the following steps (Lamb 2010, 31):

The unmarried father can get the parental responsibility by getting married to the mother who gave birth to the child.

Unmarried father can get the parental responsibility by registering their name or by re-registering their name on the birth certificate.

Unmarried father can get the parent responsibility by parental responsibility agreement with the mother.

Unmarried father can get the parental responsibility by getting the order of the parental responsibility from the court.

Unmarried fathers can get the rights of the parental responsibility by becoming the guardian of the child.

Unmarried father can get the parental responsibility by getting the ...