Maintenance Obligations (Law)

RESUMEN:
La salida efectiva del Reino Unido de la Unión Europea conlleva significativas consecuencias desde la perspectiva del Derecho internacional privado. En el presente estudio se analizan éstas en relación con algunas cuestiones del Derecho internacional privado europeo de familia, en particular respecto de la competencia judicial internacional y el reconocimiento y ejecución de decisiones en los futuros litigios transfronterizos europeos en materia matrimonial, responsabilidad parental y alimentos. Una de las consecuencias más significativas del cambio de condición del Reino Unido de Estado Miembro a tercer Estado es que perderá la libertad de circulación de las resoluciones emanadas de sus órganos judiciales, pues ya no gozarán de la exención de execuátur para su ejecución material fuera de su jurisdicción. No obstante, las negociaciones entre el Reino Unido y la UE que prevé el art. 50 del TUE podrían modificar esta situación.

ABSTRACT: The UK withdrawal from the EU will involve significant consequences from PIL perspective. This paper addresses the consequences in family matters, in particular regarding jurisdiction, recognition, and execution issues in matrimonial and parental responsibility matters together with maintenance obligations. For the UK, one of the most relevant consequences of becoming a third Estate is that EU Member States will not be compelled to recognize decisions adopted by the UK courts through the European PIL instruments. However, negotiations between the UK and the EU, as established by art. 50 TEU, could modify this natural consequence.

The article examines provisions governing reciprocal maintenance obligations in Ireland both from a historical perspective and in comparison with contemporary provisions in the EU28. Ireland is in a minority among EU states in lacking any provision in law for the maintenance of elderly, infirm or indigent parents by adult children. Part I of the article, after some preliminary discussion of filial responsibility laws and select comparisons with other international jurisdictions, sets out first in summary form and then with select commentary the presence or absence of statutory or constitutional provisions for reciprocal maintenance of ascendants in the EU28. Part II examines the case of Ireland in depth, and shows that, historically, some form of such provision was the norm. Examination of indigenous archaic legal traditions, up to the pre-independence Poor Relief Act of 1838, outlines the scope and character of such provision. It further provides an account of the traditional philosophical, historical or religious bases for such claims. Considering the contemporary absence of maintenance obligations to ascendants from statute and the Constitution, it is argued that they could only be derived as an unenumerated right; it is further argued however that there is no stable basis for such derivation, and such obligations would never be compellable by a court. It is noted that, while the state commitment to support of the aged is constitutionally enshrined, correspondence shows that the obligations of descendants were assumed by the framers of the relevant Article. Given the choice not to enshrine these obligations, and the fact that no subsequent entity (most recently the Constitution Review Group) suggested their enshrinement, it is concluded that the Irish view has historically been and remains that filial obligations are a natural societal expectation but ought not to require enshrinement in law. In conclusion, it is suggested that such extralegal regulation may in some areas be more efficacious than formalised law and, on that basis, that Ireland has no pressing need to legislate for obligations to ascendants.