Melanie Barnes: Implications of Hague 2007 being implemented

If domestic child maintenance regulations can be described as labyrinthine then by analogy any consideration of the rules of reciprocal enforcement are similar to sinking in quicksand whilst listening to Songs of Love and Hate by Leonard Cohen. Although most practitioners have reluctantly been dragged into processing jurisdictional and other issues introduced by the Maintenance Regulation 4/2009 the 2007 Hague Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Others Forms of Family Maintenance may have been perceived by many as something that may happen in the distant future. That is until recently when the government introduced the International Recovery of Maintenance (Hague Convention 2007) (Rules of Court) Regulations 2012 and commenced a specialist consultation for domestic legislation in order to implement the main provisions by the end of this year in line with EU obligations.

In a nutshell Hague 2007 will replace the provisions of the 1973 Hague Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Decisions relating to Maintenance Obligations and UN Convention on the Recovery...

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