Francoise Hetto-Gaasch from Luxembourg who presented the resolutionThe Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has passed a resolution calling on member states to better recognise and positively value the role of fathers and do various things to support shared parenting for the benefit of children.
Resolution 2079 stresses the benefits for children of the involvement of both parents in their upbringing, and calls on member states ensure that family law foresees, in case of separation or divorce, the possibility of joint custody of children, in their best interests, based on mutual agreement between the parents.
States should remove from their laws any difference based on marital status between parents who have acknowledged their child, such as the non-recognition of the rights of unmarried fathers in Scotland whose children were born before May 2006.
States should introduce into their laws the principle of shared residence following a separation, limiting any exceptions to cases of child abuse or neglect, or domestic violence, with the amount of time for which the child lives with each parent being adjusted according to the child’s needs and interests.
States should take all necessary steps to ensure that decisions relating to children’s residence and to access rights are fully enforced, particularly by following up complaints with respect to failure to hand over a child.
States should encourage and, where appropriate, develop mediation ... in order to make the parents aware that shared residence may be an appropriate option in the best interests of the child, and to work towards such a solution, by ensuring that mediators receive appropriate training and by encouraging multidisciplinary co-operation based on the “Cochem model”
FNF Scotland welcomes this major step taken by the Council of Europe, and will be pressing for its resolutions to be incorporated into Scottish family law in this Year of the Dad. We have written to the Council's Scottish delegates, Alex Salmond MP and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh MP to congratulate them on this resolution.