Protection of the Debtor's Rights in a Maintenance Obligation of Parents and Children

Abstract

The state implements a comprehensive program on ensuring unimpeded enjoyment of child support rights by the children. Nevertheless it leaves safeguards of the rights of a child support payer without due regard. Therefore, the article examines some of the problems that arise in judicial practice with regard to the protection of rights of payers rather than recipients (beneficiaries). One way to protect rights is to change the legal relationship. Special attention is paid to the analysis of Article 119 of the RF FC, the wording of which allows the law-maker to exercise an individual approach to determining the child support amount taking into account all circumstances of a particular case but in fact it negates the debtor's rights in maintenance obligations, as it does not guarantee the possibility of protecting debtor's rights to reduce the amount of child support. Using a particular court case as an example, the author concludes that the situational method of the legal regulation of family relations often fails to protect the debtor's interests in child support obligations, expresses her own opinion concerning the interpretation of certain family law rules connected with child support. Attention is drawn to the fact that the child support obligation, despite its expressly propitiatory nature, is inherently of a personal nature. Thus, this fact must be taken into account by a decision-maker in resolving child support disputes, and proposals are made aimed at improving the existing legislation.