Reciprocal arrangements with other countries
Relationship with the Child Support Agency
These laws are not strictly within the scope of this web site, because they are not within the jurisdiction of the Child Support Agency. However, it appears useful to identify them here.
This legislation is about the arrangements available in the UK for handling child maintenance where one of the parents lives outside the jurisdiction of the Child Support Agency. All such arrangements have to be arranged through the courts - the CSA is not involved. (In Scotland, Scottish courts must be used). Many of the instruments below refer to the Hague Conference, which had been running for more than a century helping to develop a framework for private international law - enabling commerce and social arrangements to apply internationally across borders. The conventions of the Hague Conference do not automatically take effect in the UK. Instead, they provide guidance, and if the UK decides to put them into operation, it does so via laws such as those below. Sometimes the UK puts just part of a convention into law - the UK's Parliament has primacy.
CSA web site - Reciprocal Enforcement of Maintenance Orders
Acts
| Maintenance Orders (Facilities for Enforcement) Act 1920 |
Apparently not available on-line. It appears to be limited to Commonwealth (ex Empire) countries. |
| Maintenance Orders (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1972 |
Apparently not available on-line. This is the main relevant Act. |
| Maintenance Enforcement Act 1991 |
Mainly England and Wales. |
| Maintenance Orders (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1992 |
The Act makes provision to amend the Maintenance Orders (Facilities for Enforcement) Act 1920 and the Maintenance Orders (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1972 in order to enable the new forms of procedure which now apply in proceedings in magistrates' courts in England and Wales. |
Statutory Instruments
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