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Issues - CSA - Why CSA exists
Quote: Lord Justice Ward, the dissenting judge,
said the Child Support
Agency and accompanying legislation was an attempt by the
Thatcher
Government to slash the growing claims for state benefits
by single mothers. Its purpose was to transfer the burden
onto to absent fathers and the agency job was to find them,
impose the amount of maintenance and enforce its payment.
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[Source unknown] (Britain)
3 or 4 August 2004
A breakthrough ruling which would have given
mothers the right to sue the
Child Support Agency if it fails to pursue fathers for maintenance
was
overturned by the Court of Appeal today.
Mary Kehoe, who has two teenage children and
two adult children, took the
agency to the High Court last year after it failed to enforce
orders
against her former husband who owed her thousands of pounds
in maintenance.
Mr Justice Walls judgment that the CSA could
be sued for damages under
human rights laws gave hope to thousands of separated parents
who applied
to the agency.
Family legal experts said at the time that the
decision would have a huge
impact for separated parents struggling to support children.
CSA figures for the year 2001/2002 show that
£2,500 million in maintenance
was outstanding, of which £2,000 million would probably
never be collected.
But today, by a two to one majority, the appeal
judges ruled that Mrs Kehoe
does not have any rights to sue the agency and allowed an
appeal by the
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Andrew Smith.
Mrs Kehoe, 37, who lived in Amersham, Bucks,
now lives in Spain after her
former husband a £40,000 a year self-employed maintenance
contractor failed
to pay more than £17,500 in child support.
She married in 1983 and filed for divorce in
1993.
Lord Justice Ward, the dissenting judge, said
the Child Support Agency and
accompanying legislation was an attempt by the Thatcher Government
to slash
the growing claims for state benefits by single mothers.
Its purpose was to transfer the burden onto
to absent fathers and the
agency job was to find them, impose the amount of maintenance
and enforce
its payment.
The appeal judge said that the Child Support
Act gave the Secretary of
State the power to enforce maintenance orders.
The responsibility for assessing, collecting
and enforcing child
maintenance was transferred from the courts to the CSA, he
said.
He said that the effect of the Act was to take
away an individual rights to
go to the courts to seek maintenance and have orders enforced.
Those powers
were transferred to the Government by the 1991 Act.
Lord Justice Ward said it was an example of
the powers of the courts being
taken away by Government and that this imperiled the constitutional
safeguard of a right to a court.
He dismissed the Minister appeal against the
ruling that Mrs Kehoe rights
to a fair trial under the Human Rights Act had been invoked
because she
could not personally enforce the arrears of maintenance.
Lord Justice Keene and Lord Justice Latham
said that Mrs Kehoe had no right
in domestic law to a maintenance payment and therefore her
civil rights to
a fair trial under the Human Rights Act cannot be activated.
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