21. February 07
The Riigikogu adopted the Child support Act, which allows single parents to apply to the state for child support provided that they initiate court proceedings against the parent who is in violation of the support obligation.
According to Elina Saunanen, the Adviser of the Private Law Division of the Ministry of Justice and one of the authors of the act, nearly 80% of the children of single parents do not receive any support from the other parent as indicated by a survey of the Statistical Office in 2005.
According to the act, the state will pay the single parent child support in the amount of EEK <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />4,500 in three portions over a period of 90 days. The preconditions for applying for the support is initiation of court proceedings and an initial court judgment (ruling) for the benefit of the parent claiming support. The parent can choose between the expedited procedure of the payment order and ordinary procedure.
According to Saunanen, 90 days is presumably a sufficient time for the court to resolve a petition to secure an action or a petition of a payment order and the parent could initiate the execution procedure. After the court judgment made in the child support dispute for the benefit of the parent claiming the support the state will claim the child support paid to the single parent from the obligee.
One of the goals of the act is to ensure the support of a child in a situation where one of the parents does not fulfil their support obligation and the court proceedings and compulsory execution initiated for receiving the child support have not produced the desired results yet.
According to Justice Minister Rein Lang, another very important goal of the act is to encourage single parents to address the court with their child support claims. “Unfortunately, many single parents accept the fact that they receive no child support and do not try to enforce their child’s right to the child support in the court,” said Lang.
“Single parents do not know how and they do not want to initiate court proceedings against the other party, because they believe that they will not get anything anyhow. This is certainly not the case. In fact, the courts are very serious about ordering payment of child support and bailiffs are more motivated to attend to these matters as well,” assured Lang.
According to the Statistical office, there are approximately 44,000 parents in Estonia who are forced to raise their child alone and 60,800 children are raised in single-parent families. According to the statistics compiled by the Ministry of Justice, as of 2006 bailiffs had approx. 10,700 files pertaining to child support. 2/3 of the claims can be satisfied successfully.
