EE. Reciprocal Enforcement; Interjurisdictional Support Orders

AuthorJulien D. Payne - Marilyn A. Payne
Pages481-481

Page 481

EE. RECIPROCAL ENFORCEMENT; INTERJURISDICTIONAL

SUPPORT ORDERS

There are circumstances where a Provincial Court may decline to enforce a foreign support order registered under the Family Relations Act (B.C.) on the ground that enforcement would be inequitable, but it is only in exceptional circumstances that equity should aid a parent who has failed to support a child when able to do so.207In Genova v. Knight,208a chambers judge was found to have erred in declaring the child support provisions of a divorce judgment granted in New Jersey, U.S.A. contrary to public policy in British Columbia under section 19(3)(b)(ii) of the Interjurisdictional Support Orders Act,209because the divorce judgment also incorporated the terms of a matrimonial property settlement which was conditioned upon the dismissal of a pending domestic violence complaint in New Jersey. The chambers judge was found by the British Columbia Court of Appeal to have taken too narrow a view of the issue of public policy by failing to take into account the matter of comity and the conflict of laws aspect of the issue in light of expert evidence that the impugned contractual provision was considered routine and not contrary to public policy in New Jersey. The British Columbia Court of Appeal concluded that caution dictated against a finding that enforcement of the New Jersey child support provisions would be contrary to public policy in British Columbia, given that the fundamental principles of child support in law and society, in the circumstances of the present case at least, overwhelmed the relatively minor concern that there might have been an attempt to stifle a public offence that was completely unrelated to the issue of child support. After acknowledging the importance of sustaining child support obligations, the British Columbia Court of Appeal remitted the issue back to the trial court for appropriate enforcement of the child support provisions of the New Jersey divorce judgment.

FF. PRESERVATION ORDERS

Section 8(1) of The Family Maintenance Act, 1997 (Saskatchewan) empowers the Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench to grant an interim or final order to restrain the disposition or wasting of assets available to...

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