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Parental Responsibility

Both parents automatically have parental responsibility for a child if they were married when the child was born. This means that each of them is legally recognised as having all the rights and duties that parents normally have in relation to a child and that generally they both have to be consulted about major decisions in relation to the child’s upbringing e.g. in relation to education, medical treatment and any change of the child’s name.

If the child’s parents were not married, only the mother automatically has parental responsibility unless the child was born after 1 st January 2005 AND the father’s name was entered on the child’s birth certificate. Unmarried parents can sign a parental responsibility agreement giving the father parental responsibility or he can apply to Court for an order giving it to him.

There are provisions for this law to change. However, when the law does change, it will not be retrospective.

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