Leaving children in the custody of one parent after a divorce should be abolished, the Law Reform Commission has proposed.
It is seeking the introduction of various court orders putting responsibility on both parents.
The commission's review seeks to alter conventional thinking that the parent who has custody 'owns' the child, with the other virtually becoming disconnected from the relationship with only access rights.
It wants the current split between custody and access replaced by four types of orders for different arrangements: Residence - specifies where the child lives and who takes care of day-to-day needs; Contact - states the child's right to have a relationship with the non-resident parent; Specific issues - delineates parents' duties and rights over issues they disagree on; Prohibited steps - precludes a parent from exercising a specific aspect of parental responsibility without a court's consent.
'The parent granted the custody tends to think they own the child,' legislator Miriam Lau Kin-yee, chairman of the commission's sub-committee on guardianship and custody, said yesterday.
'Joint parenting should continue even after the divorce for the best interests of the child.' The review said guardianship should be replaced by the principle of continuing responsibilities to make both parents carry out their parental duties until the child reached maturity.
The commission also proposed that the child's voice be heard through a separate representative, such as solicitor, social worker or child therapist. If sufficiently mature, the child would be personally consulted.
