The minor child is either a parent or guardian.
As mentioned in Part 1, parental custody entitles the parent to care for the child, i.e. to provide the conditions and housing necessary for the child’s subsistence and upbringing. He or she has the right to choose the child’s upbringing and school. The person exercising parental authority is the legal representative of the child, since, as a rule, a minor cannot make any legal declaration. Finally, the holder of parental authority may manage the child’s property.
What options do parents have to settle parental rights?
First, they need to agree whether they will continue to exercise joint parental responsibility or whether only one of them will be entitled to do so.
Nowadays, the institution of shared care is becoming more common, i.e. when parents alternate the right to care for the child for the same period of time, for example, one week the child is with one parent and the other week with the other. Under the legislation, this is also joint parental care.
If they do not wish to exercise parental responsibility jointly, they can agree that only one of them will exercise full parental responsibility in the future, or they can agree to share parental responsibility between them: in this case, only one parent will be entitled to some rights and only the other parent to others.
You should know that if the parties cannot agree, parental custody remains joint until the court decides who should have this right, even if the parties are already separated. The court can only order joint parental responsibility if the parents jointly request it. In the absence of a joint agreement, only one parent will be entitled to exercise parental responsibility.
