/View.info/ after the “SHARE PARENTING” round table, held on 30.01.2024. in the National Assembly, organized by the parliamentary group of PP and DB
The topic of “SHARED PARENTING” is only at first glance a topic for the non-custodial parent after divorce or separation. From a national perspective, this is a conversation about the tragic state of the family and children, about the demographic tragedy in Bulgaria. Viewed personally, this is an extremely acute, complex and difficult to solve personal and social problem. It painfully affects a huge part of Bulgarian citizens and affects their mental state, vitality and ability to work.
In recent decades, Bulgarian parenting has been the target of a powerful external attack. The clear and undisputed until recently legal concept of parentage, enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria and the Family Code, became the object of persistent attempts for revision in the field of procedural and substantive law. No matter how paradoxical it sounds, after millennia of family tradition of the Bulgarian ethnic group, today in Bulgarian society there is no unified idea of parenthood as a biologically predetermined category. The universally recognized definition, resting on anatomical givenness, was abandoned and propagandistically brought to the absurd situation of denying human biology. Today, a parent can be the official who receives money to raise someone else’s child (“adoptive parent”), the homosexual partner of one parent, several partners of one parent regardless of sexual orientation. It could be the surrogate mother. It can be a French, British or Spanish homosexual or gay lady, who entered into a homosexual marriage with Bulgarian partners abroad, adopted the Bulgarian child of his partner (not excluded for payment), and then settled temporarily in Bulgaria, claiming the legal status of parent. It can also be transgender with a fluid sexual identity. And why not in the near future and a transhumanoid.
Therefore, the number of parents, as a result of these ultra-modern concepts of parenting, is more than twice the number of children, i.e. a child may already have more than two parents.
A logical question arises: is Bulgarian society ready to accept a new ultra-concept of parenthood, is the expert legal community ready to discuss shared parenthood without having defined the legal term “parent”, is the Bulgarian legislator ready to adopt new legislation without has defined the circle of subjects of parental rights, is the Bulgarian court ready to interpret the concept of “parent” broadly to fluid transgenders and surrogate mothers. Who are the subjects of parental rights – the adoptive parent, the surrogate mother, the transgender person? Or human beings creating new life as it was millennia before us. Until the legislator gives an unequivocal answer to these questions, the solid legal regulation of shared parenting remains a fiction.
RHODE INTERNATIONAL and the parenting movement cannot agree in principle to a legislative solution to shared parenting without working out a legal definition of the legal category “parent”.
The initiative to hold today’s round table, as a continuation of the social dialogue on this topic since 2016, nevertheless deserves respect and support. This can be a step in the right direction, if it is not a cover for the realization of other goals, for example, providing parental legal status in the future to persons who do not correspond to traditional Bulgarian ideas of a parent. We are ready to engage in a serious and open dialogue on the essence of the problem, but not in front negotiations.
The statement by the Minister of Labor and Social Policy that his department is working on establishing a State Agency for Children’s Rights sounded surprising. It is intended to be the second agency for children after the National Child Protection Agency. This news raises more questions than it answers.
The topic of shared parenting has been discussed several times over the years, but without practical results. The reason is obvious – a discrepancy between the declared goals and the proposed legislative measures. A technical solution is sought for specific social and economic problems without looking for the causes. The law is not omnipresent. It is only a tool for legitimizing existing social relations. He is not able to create social relations by himself. Attempts to adopt such laws always give birth to a dead legal norm.
An adequate solution to the problems in the exercise of parental rights cannot be found if it is sought within the framework of only one separate legal institution. Parenting problems are not an isolated phenomenon, but one of the manifestations of the overall crisis of family relations. They are the result of serious social deficits in this area, which have a devastating impact on demography.
It is a trivial truth that even the worst dialogue is better than any confrontation, just as the worst peace is better than any war.
The round table was representative enough. It was attended by the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the State Police, the SRS and the State Security Service, MPs from the PP and DB, ITN, former ministers of justice and foreign affairs. Their speeches, however, were general, terse, expectant, deliberately sparing.
We had a different idea of this dialogue. We expected discussions on both the technical aspects and the philosophy of the law. We expected from the invited state institutions statistics and expert research on the situation of married and unmarried couples in the country. We expected information on the quantitative and qualitative dimensions of the problem of split parenting, on the number of divorces and separations, on the number of children from such broken marriages and broken cohabitations, a summary assessment of the existing legal regulation and an assessment of the effectiveness of the proposed legal regulation. We expected ideas to change the legislation, with detailed proposals for legislative changes, with adequate justification and an expert assessment of the effect of the legislative change. Such were not presented. A legal-technical discussion resulted, without analysis of the causes of the phenomenon and without specific texts. The technical aspects have completely displaced the philosophy of the law.
The lack of concrete information was a serious weakness of the round table. It resulted in a semi-dialogue, semi-discussion, in a semi-information environment. Claims that we would receive the necessary information and legislative proposals in subsequent discussions came only at the close of the round table, which was useless.
ROD and other parent organizations cannot express a comprehensive opinion on such a complex social problem without information and justification. That would be to underestimate the task.
At this preliminary stage, the ROD can neither reject nor support a proposal to change the SC in the “shared parenting” part. For us, the public dialogue has only just begun. Today’s round table is just the beginning of this discussion of how modern family relationships originate and develop. The true intentions of the organizers will become clear from how the further process of discussing the topic will develop.
If the state is really looking for solutions to this acute social issue, the executive power should take immediate measures to implement the current legislation by its own bodies – execution of court decisions on time, responsibility for non-implementation of the law and the court decision, for mediation and expansion of opportunities for out-of-court decisions between the children’s parents, etc.
In conclusion, I want to dispel any doubts or attempts at manipulative interpretations. Our participation in the first shared parenting roundtable does not constitute agreement in advance of the proposals. RHODE INTERNATIONAL and other parenting organizations will strongly oppose any attempts to instrumentalize shared parenting to gradually incorporate the elements of children’s justice into our legislation. If we detect such intentions and trends, we will act accordingly. We will reveal to the Bulgarian society the lobbying interests of certain political forces and NGOs from children’s justice in our country. We will explain to the public the catastrophic consequences of juvenile justice for Bulgarian children and their demographic dimensions.
We will carefully analyze the discussions at this round table and take a position on the philosophy of the proposed legislative changes. When the texts of the new legislative proposals are provided to us, together with the reasons for them, we will then present our expert analysis.
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