Parental Responsibility
Parental Responsibility is the concept that affords a natural parent all of the rights and duties affecting a child; for example, the right to consent to medical treatment, the right to be consulted on matters relating to a child’s education and welfare.
Whilst natural mothers automatically have Parental Responsibility for their child, as do both parents when a child is born within a marriage, the natural father of a child born outside a marriage, does not. He can acquire PR by entering into a written agreement with the natural mother or by acquiring it pursuant to an order of the court.
The rights of non-married fathers have been more widely addressed in the introduction of the Adoption and Children Act 2002, which came into force on 01/12/2003 enabling biological fathers to acquire Parental Responsibility automatically by signing the birth certificate at the time the child’s birth is registered by the natural mother – but what if the father is not advised when the birth is registered or the mother deliberately avoids telling him to deliberately evade his input into the child’s life?
Parental Responsibility applications can be made to the court under Section 4 of the Children Act 1989, or by entering into a written agreement with the natural mother.
Where a child is born to a same sex couple, only one of them will be the child’s biological parent, thus the non-biological parent may need to apply to the court for a Declaration of Parentage, in order to attain parental responsibility for that child.
A step parent does not automatically have PR for a child in their care, and may also seek to acquire Parental Responsibility so that they too can act with the appropriate legal authority in respect of that child. The application is made with the support of one of the child’s biological parents, to extend PR to that step parent. The other natural parent must be served with notice of the intended application, and has a right to make representations, but whenever beneficial to the child, the court will look sympathetically on such an application. Talk to us if any of the above circumstances apply to you, and you wish to address this.