No paternity law submitted with Parliament

September 15, 2008 10:14 AM

‘A paternity enactment was never submitted to Parliament’, is Pedro Atacho’s (chairman of Parliament, PAR) reaction on yesterday’s letter to the editor from Doctor Sergio Leon in newspaper Amigoe. In his letter, Leon criticizes the fact that there is no paternity act in the Antilles and establishes that this is because politicians have ‘too much butter on their heads’.

A paternity act lays down rules for a father’s duty to take care of children conceived by him. In his letter, Leon pleads for the introduction of a paternity act on November 20th, the International Day for the Rights of the Child. Atacho says that every citizen has the right to approach Parliament with an enactment. It is then up to the individual Parliament-members to do something with the bill.

“The right of initiative is with the Parliament-members. It is up to Leon to draw up a bill and submit it to Parliament for consideration. It doesn’t happen very often that citizens approach the Parliament-members with concrete enactments. A fact is though that there is much contact about ideas and wishes with Parliament. But I incite Leon and all other citizens that want to submit an bill, to please get in contact with Parliament”, said Atacho.

This is not the first time that the need for a paternity act is being mentioned. MAN-leader Charles Cooper has already made out a case for such act a few years ago. He says that he supports that fathers are held accountable for the upbringing of their children. He says that his party had several conversations with different organizations about this matter. His party is therefore in favour of the introduction of such law.

(Source: National Newspaper Amigoe)

13 September, 2008