Bill Ends Use Of Term ‘Illegitimate’

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31775, 4 September 1968, Page 1

Bill Ends Use Of Term ‘Illegitimate’

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, September 3. The remaining discriminations against illegitimate children will be done away with in New Zealand law if the Status of Children Bill—introduced in Parliament today—is approved.

The Minister of Justice (Mr Hanan) said the bill put the child bom out of wedlock in the same position legally as children born of married parents.

Other highlights of the bill are that:

The term “illegitimate” will be removed from the Statute Book. More responsibility will be placed on the fathers of illegitimate children.

Introducing the bill, Mr Hanan said it provided simply that for all the purposes of New Zealand law, the relationship between every person and his father and mother should be determined irrespective of whether the father and mother were, or had been, married to each other.

Mr Hanan said the bill was In one sense the culmination of a process which had been going on in most of the com-mon-law world—a process of removing discriminations against children based merely on the accident of their birth “We have been assimilating the legal rights of the child bom out of wedlock to those of other children,” he said.

“New Zealand has led most common-law countries in this humanitarian direction and it will give me great satisfaction if we are the first to reach the end of the road,” said Mr Hanan. SPECIAL PROVISIONS

The bill would put the child boro out of wedlock in the same position legally as more fortunate children—recognising however that in the nature of things there must be some special provisions. These special provisions were based on the facts that the father of such a child was not always identified and that in some cases the child without a father would require special protection in such

things as paternity orders, consents to adoption, and domicile. In future, except in the procedural and evidentiary ways, the law would not recognise any special and inferior status of “illegitimate child.” “There is an old cliche,”

said Mr Hanan, “that there are no illegitimate children—merely illegitimate parents, and it seems to me that the time is overdue for the law to be brought into line with that saying.” The bill would also place a more real responsibility on the fathers of children born out of wedlock. The law would clearly and unequivocally declare that the father had the same obligations towards such children as he had towards his children born in wedlock.

“In this respect the bill is a companion-piece to the Domestic Proceedings Bill at present before Parliament, which deals in detail with maintenance obligations,” he said. It would be absurd to pretend that the last factor would cure New Zealand’s illegitimacy problem. “But I do believe that if the bill is enacted it will have a salutary effect in this direction,” he said. OBLIGATIONS OF FATHER “Once it becomes appreciated that everyone who fathers a child by a single mother has a real, onerous, and continuing obligation at law towards that child, a number of young men will hestitate before they incur the risk of fathering a child.” Dr A. M. Finlay (Lab., Waitakere) asked the Minister how paternity would be determined under the bill—by admission or by the finding of a court—and how relationships would be identified.

Mr Hanan replied that clause seven of the bill guarded against the possibility of claims being made, to the detriment of other claimants, by a person who alleged that he was the child of a deceased person. EFFECT ON WILLS

Under New Zealand law in relation to wills, the use of the word “child” meant the lawful child and excluded illegitimate children. If this bill were passed the words “child or children” would include illegitimate children. Provision had been made for people to alter their wills and a three-year period, up to January 1, 1971, had been allowed for this.

It could be argued that a citizen who had made his will with the understanding that the word meant "legal children,” under this amendment might be leaving part of his estate to. someone to whom he did not intend to leave it.

The position of the legal wife would not be adversely affected in ordinary circumstances by the amending legislation.

The bill was given a second reading pro forma and referred to the Parliamentary Statutes Revision Committee.