CHILDCARE

The abolition of the concept of alternate, exclusive and joint custody

• Now both parents will be considered carers, which means they will be fully responsible for the child during and outside care. Both parents must cooperate and have an equal duty to properly care for the child.
• According to Section 888 CC, in the case the parents of the child no longer live together, the term “contact” of the other (non-caring) parent with the child is no longer used, but it is assumed that both parents care for the child – for the time the child is entrusted to them – i.e. both exercise “care” (not one having child in care and the other having contact with the child).
• A parent has the right to adequate information if the other parent is caring for the child and to so-called indirect contact with the child.  The new version of Section 891 CC follows: “If the child’s parents do not live together, the other parent shall have the right to indirect contact with the child and the right to information about the child to a reasonable extent while the parent is caring for the child; the provisions of Sections 888(2) and 889(1) shall apply mutatis mutandis”. In this context, the amendment explicitly includes so-called indirect contact, which is contact carried out by means of distance communication, in the rights arising from parental responsibility.

MAINTENANCE

• The amendment expressly allows for the assignment for consideration of a payable maintenance claim to a third party. The consideration must be at least up to the amount of the claim. This amendment is mainly intended to help parents in economically disadvantaged situations who do not have the financial means to recover maintenance and who can obtain the funds more quickly by making an assignment. The assignor does not guarantee that the claim will be paid.

• At the same time, the amendment will introduce higher late payment interest for non-payment of maintenance. The higher late payment interest is intended to ensure better financial stability for families after divorce. It is provisionally envisaged that late payment interest will be set at a daily rate of one-tenth of one percent of the amount owed for each day of delay.

ARRANGED DIVORCE

• It is suggested that the courts should abandon the general requirement to ascertain the causes of the breakdown of the marriage and should now do so only in specific cases that explicitly require it (the amendment introduces an irrebuttable presumption of qualified breakdown of the marriage if the legal conditions are met). In the case of an arranged divorce, there would be no need to establish and prove the breakdown of the marriage at all. At the same time, this amendment follows the amendment to the Act on Special Court Proceedings (hereinafter referred to as the “SCP“), namely Section 389/1 of the SCP, which will allow courts to dispense with the examination of the spouses not only when it is particularly difficult, but also in cases where the spouses’ consent to the divorce and the agreement to a permanent, deep and irretrievable breakdown of their marriage is evident from written submissions or identical statements of the parties at the hearing, the authenticity and veracity of which are not in doubt. The aim is to reduce the administrative burden of divorce and to speed up the process for spouses who can reach an agreement.
• At the same time, the requirement that the spouses have not lived together for more than six months is no longer required in the case of an arranged divorce – thus, only a minimum of one year of marriage remains as a condition for an arranged divorce under Art.757/1(a) CC.

MERGING DIVORCE AND CUSTODY PROCEEDINGS

• It will now be possible to merge divorce and custody proceedings, but only in cases where the divorce is an arranged divorce, and the spouses agree on the terms of the divorce and the relationship with the children. By merging the divorce and custody proceedings into one process, the amendment aims to simplify the situation for parents, especially in uncontested divorces.
• There will be an ”interim decision“, which will give the court the necessary flexibility to regulate the child’s circumstances for the period before the decision is made, thus providing better protection for the child in the context of his/her parents’ divorce.  The interim decision will only be used where an interim arrangement is possible and does not replace the decision on the merits.

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT OF CHILDREN       

• Section 884(2) of the CC is newly extended to include a sentence concerning corporal punishment of a child. This is an implementation of the EU Convention, which strictly excludes violence against children. The Czech Republic was one of the last Member States to accept this provision. According to the wording of the provision, corporal punishment directly affects the human dignity of the child.
• However, this provision is not punitive in nature, it does not establish the possibility of punishment against parents who corporally punish their children, and it is intended to modify the way children are raised in the Czech Republic. This is a declaratory provision intended to make it clear to society that corporal punishment does not belong in a child’s upbringing.