A common situation following the dissolution of marriage is that the parent exercising sole parental rights holds a final and binding court decision (res judicata) establishing a monthly obligation of the non-custodial parent to pay a specified monthly amount as a contribution to child maintenance.
However, an increasingly frequent situation is one in which such a judicially established monetary obligation remains a mere legal dead letter in the hands of the judgment creditor. These cases mostly involve situations where the judgment debtor (the maintenance-obligated parent) has left the Republic of Serbia and earns income and holds assets exclusively outside the borders of the Republic of Serbia. Regrettably, in such circumstances, the debtor’s assets remain beyond the reach of standard enforcement proceedings conducted before domestic judicial authorities.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, such a scenario does not necessarily mark the end of the creditor’s legal avenues for the compulsory collection of the claim. Provided that the state in which the debtor resides and works is a Contracting State to the Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance, the accrued and unpaid maintenance amounts may be enforced in that state through the legal assistance mechanisms established under the said Convention.
The relevant provisions of this Convention stipulate that the recognition and enforcement of a domestic judgment abroad may be initiated through the designated Central Authority of the Republic of Serbia. Upon verifying that the formal requirements are met, the domestic authority transmits the application to the Central Authority of the requested State, which subsequently undertakes all necessary legal and factual measures to achieve the recognition and compulsory enforcement of the accrued and unpaid child maintenance obligations.
Closely related to the above is the issue of the statute of limitations (limitation period) regarding maintenance payments, where it is useful to note that child maintenance claims rarely become time-barred. The rationale for this lies in the applicable statutory provisions, which dictate that the statute of limitations does not run between parents and children for the entire duration of parental rights.
Simply put, in the vast majority of cases, this statutory scheme implies that the right to enforce and collect child maintenance debt cannot be barred by limitation before the child reaches twenty-one years of age.
