On July 8, 2024, the judges participating in the Child Rights and Women’s Rights Practice Groups gathered with representatives of the civil society organizations and lawyers from the Legal Aid Service (LAS) to discuss the challenges in family disputes related to child support and parental alienation.

Participants identified  several challenges encountered by Georgian judges when trying to calculate child support figures. These included the lack of clear legal regulations governing the issue, the inablity of courts to accurately identify the income of the non-resident parent, and the lack of well-established case law giving guidance in this field of law. The participants noted that is weaknesses in the system affects not only children but also the women who are the resident parents in most cases and must endure economic hardships because the other parent is paying an inadequate amount of child support (or not paying at all).

Another problem discussed by the group, is parental alienation, which often happens in high-conflict divorce cases.   Parental alienation occurs when children ally themselves with one parent/caregiver and strongly reject the other parent without legitimate justification (such as abuse or neglect).

Following an introduction by Judge Murtaz Kapanadze from Samtredia District Court, psychologist Ekaterine Tavartkiladze led two sessions on parent-child relationships during divorce/separation and on the characteristics of alienated children.

Judge Eka Zarnadze from the Tbilisi Court of Appeals made a presentation on how to calculate child support, and Elene Sitchinava shared the findings of a study done by the team of researchers at the Georgian CSO, Ilia’s Legal House (ILIASI) and and gave her recommendations on child support should be calculated. calculations.

The final session was moderated by the Supreme Court Justice Ekaterine Gaistashvili who stressed the importance of such discussions to improve income verification processes and expertise in handling parental alienation cases in order to better protect the rights and well-being of children.