Relatório de estágio no Juízo de Família e Menores de Lisboa. O fundo de garantia de alimentos devidos a menores

• Autor(a) principal: Mártires, Mariana Brito dos
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/154725
• topic: Fundo de garantia de alimentos devidos a menores; Obrigação de alimentos; Incumprimento; Indexante de apoios sociais; Desjudicialização; Child maintenance warranty fund; Maintenance obligation; Noncompliance; Social Support Index; Dejudicialization; Direito

The following Report is the product of an internship at the Lisbon Family and Juvenile Court. Aside from a brief description of the activities developed during the internship, this work focuses on research carried out on the Child Maintenance Warranty Fund (CMWF), which emerged to ensure the right to child maintenance for children whose families have very few economic means, against non-compliance with this obligation. The right to maintenance plays an essential role in child and youth development. It is up to the parents to provide for the well-being of their children. However, the Portuguese State has the obligation of protecting children against any means of abandonment, as a way of guaranteeing their full development (article 69º, n.º 1 Constitution). It was within the scope of this protection and according to the Convention on Children’s Rights and the Recommendation from the European Council, that the Law n.º 75/98, 19th of November, created the CMWF. It operates as follows: in light of the non-compliance, and the impossibility of enforced collection, the Fund anticipates a maintenance payment, and may claim the amounts advanced from the defaulting debtor. The Fund has remained almost unchanged during its twenty-four years of existence. The main changes had to do with specifying the moment after which the Fund should start the payments, the limits of such instalments and the extension of the Fund’s scope of intervention. Nowadays, despite its name, the protection conferred by this instrument may include adults provided that the maintenance obligation persists, as well as its non-compliance which serves as a requirement for activating the CMWF. This Report will analyse the current legal regime and the legislative options taken in order to identify possible weaknesses and recommend alternative solutions to overcome them.