Proposed changes mean not all parents can get financial support from children

SINGAPORE – Parents who have abused or abandoned their children in the past may have to get permission from the authorities before they can seek financial support from their offspring.

This is one of four proposed changes to the law on the maintenance of parents that aim to strike a balance between safeguarding vulnerable seniors and protecting children against misuse of the law, said Marine Parade GRC MP Seah Kian Peng. 

He is the chairman of a work group reviewing the Maintenance of Parents Act, which was passed in 1995.

The Act allows seniors who are unable to provide for themselves to claim maintenance from their children who are capable of supporting them but are not doing so.

In September, The Straits Times reported that one in three cases seen at the Tribunal for the Maintenance of Parents – which acts like a court – involved allegations that the parents previously abused, neglected or abandoned their children.

The work group, comprising nine MPs, will run a public consultation to gather feedback on the proposed amendments from Nov 14 to Dec 9.

It was set up in October 2021 to review the rules that were last amended in 2010, as part of efforts to ensure that seniors’ needs are met. 

Conciliation

The first proposed change involves requiring parents with a record of abusing, neglecting or abandoning their children to first ask the tribunal for permission before embarking on the compulsory process of conciliation with their children to try to resolve their differences. 

If conciliation fails, seniors can take their grievances to the tribunal, which will decide whether and how much in maintenance should be awarded.

The Commissioner for the Maintenance of Parents and the tribunal will search for records of child abuse in official databases, such as the one kept by the Ministry of Social and Family Development Child Protective Service, after an application for maintenance is made.

MacPherson MP and work group member Tin Pei Ling said that currently, the child has to explain why he refuses to pay maintenance, and may have to relive past trauma in the process of getting the maintenance claim dismissed. The proposal places the onus on the abusive parent to prove why the application should be considered, she added.

The recommendations are the result of 13 focus group discussions and a survey of 1,000 people by the work group and the Alliance for Action to Strengthen Marriages and Family Relationships.

About three in four people polled agreed that elderly parents should be prevented from filing a maintenance claim if they had abused, neglected or abandoned their child.

Frivolous applications

Another proposal will enable the tribunal to dismiss frivolous or vexatious applications without the need for children to explain why they should not be made to support their parents.

In law, frivolous or vexatious applications refer to cases that are unlikely to result in any useful outcome, or where the people filing the cases merely wish to embarrass or annoy their opponents.

Children have to defend themselves in such cases under existing rules and the experience can be traumatic, especially if they were abused by their parents in the past. 

Non-monetary orders

A third proposed change is aimed at allowing the tribunal to introduce non-monetary orders such as requiring parents with a gambling problem or other addictions to attend counselling.

The orders are meant to tackle the root causes of the acrimony that has resulted in children refusing to financially support their parents, said Bukit Batok MP Murali Pillai, who is also a member of the work group.

The details have yet to be worked out, he added, but one option is for the tribunal to deny maintenance if the parents do not comply with the counselling order.

Mending ties

The last of the amendments will give the Commissioner for the Maintenance of Parents the power to contact the children of destitute seniors to attend a mandatory conciliation session with their parents. 

This can be done even if the parents did not agree to or apply for conciliation. However, if conciliation fails, the parents must agree to apply for financial support before the authorities can act on it.

The move to bring in the children for conciliation is in the hope of mending the relationship between parent and child.

Ms Tin said welfare homes have cases of destitute parents with children who can afford to but refuse to support them. The elderly parents do not apply for maintenance either, to avoid straining ties even further, for example.

She added that such cases are “quite rare”. In response to queries from ST on these cases, the work group said that the numbers are small. 

Ms Tin said: “We want to send a signal that society here very much values filial piety, and reciprocity and filial piety are things that are greatly valued... and that children don’t just get away with not supporting their parents.”

The work group plans to table in the first quarter of 2023 a Private Member’s Bill to change the law. That means a backbench MP, and not a political office-holder, will introduce the Bill.

The public can share their views on the proposed amendments at https://go.gov.sg/feedbackmpa from Nov 14 to Dec 9.

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.