What is Sole Parental Responsibility?
If you have sole parental responsibility, it means that you do not have to consult with the other parent of the child before making major decisions concerning the child.
There are some special and more extreme decisions in which you will need to consult the other parent for their permission.
For example, gender change therapy is a decision that both parents need to agree on before surgery can commence.
The Court will grant equal and shared parental responsibility unless you can successfully argue it should not be presumed.
You must show the Court evidence that it would not be in the best interests of the child if equal shared parental responsibility is given.
This can include proving there are reasonable grounds to believe that one parent, or a person who lives with that parent, has engaged in family violence or subjected the child to abuse.
Child abuse can also be extended to another child who was a member of that parent’s, or the person who lives with the parent’s, family.
The court may then consider making an order for Sole Parental Responsibility.