The Federal Council's proposal for a new regulation of child support payments has reached the Legal Affairs Committee of the National Council. Compared to its initial presentation, it has undergone hardly any changes – and certainly no improvements – following the consultation process. However, during the Legal Affairs Committee's deliberations, we had the opportunity to present our ideas for a simple and fair regulation of child support to this body.
The GeCoBi proposal for regulating child support represents the practical implementation of the principle of shared parenting. It is based on the simple fact that a child fundamentally has two parents who are obligated to care for them. Due to the prohibition of discrimination in the constitution, these two parents also have equal rights and obligations – particularly regarding the duty of care and the right to pursue a profession. This results in a shared responsibility for providing for the child's needs for care and maintenance. Of course, not all parents want to or can (yet) live according to a 50/50 custody model. However, this model provides an excellent starting point for negotiations to reach mutually acceptable solutions tailored to the individual needs of the couple.
Recommendations to the Legal Affairs Committee
This paper presents the concrete implementation of our approach. It contains numerous numerical examples for typical separation scenarios. They all demonstrate the practical feasibility of our approach.
About the author