On Thursday, the 13th of February, the Latvian Saeima rejected the amendments to the Maintenance Guarantee Fund Law proposed by the opposition party National Alliance, which provided for increase the amount of state-guaranteed child support paid from the Maintenance Guarantee Fund (MGF).
According to the National Alliance, since 2020, the Cabinet of Ministers has established two different minimum amounts of maintenance – one to be provided by each parent and the other – state-guaranteed. The former is tied to the minimum wage and thus regularly updated, while the amount of state-guaranteed child support is set at a lower level than the amount of child support to be provided by the parent, and it is not indexed.
Section 179 of the Civil Law provides that the duty of parents is commensurate with their abilities and property status to maintain the child. The article states that there is a minimum size that a parent must provide for each of his or her children, regardless of his or her ability to maintain the child and the condition of the property. The legislator has delegated the determination of the minimum amount to the Cabinet of Ministers, stipulating that the minimum monthly wage and the age of the child established in the country must be taken into account.
On the basis of this delegation, the Cabinet of Ministers has determined that the minimum maintenance that each parent must provide to each child from birth to the age of seven is 25% of the minimum monthly wage established by the Cabinet of Ministers, and from the age of seven to 30%.
According to the party, from 2020, the minimum amount of maintenance specified by the Cabinet of Ministers should have been renewed.
However, in 2019, the Cabinet of Ministers submitted a draft law on the delegation of the determination of the payment of guaranteed maintenance to the government. The bill was submitted as part of a budget package and, according to the National Alliance, it was supported without properly assessing its social dimension.
According to the National Alliance, the amount of state-guaranteed child support to be paid from the MGF each year falls further behind the economic situation and salary changes in the country, and this year is a third lower than the minimum amount of child support for parents established on the basis of Section 179 of the Civil Law.
“As a result, relative and actual poverty of households where children receive funding from the Maintenance Guarantee Fund increases, as well as the risk of exclusion of children in these households,” notes the party.
The MGF was once set up to pay child support even in cases where a parent is not fulfilling their responsibilities and does not participate in child support. The State then tries to recover the funds paid from the MGF from these parents.