The Supreme Court has sentenced a man who stopped paying child support to his family for the offense under Article 227 of the Penal Code to a penalty of six months in prison and an additional penalty of special disqualification from the right to passive suffrage during the time of the sentence.

It notes that this offense “can be configured as a type of economic violence, given that the failure to fulfill this obligation leaves the children themselves in a state of need in which, due to their young age and lack of self-sufficiency, they require that nutritional support from the person obliged to provide it, first due to a moral and natural obligation that the obligated person has, and if this does not occur, it will have to be through a judicial obligation. And this, to the extent that if the person obliged to provide it fails to do so, it requires the parent who has them in custody to make an extra effort in their care and attention towards the children, depriving themselves of attending to their own needs to cover the obligations that the obligated person does not fulfill.”

All of this determines that these behaviors can be called economic violence when there are failures to pay child support. And this, because it constitutes the breach of an obligation that should not be demanded by law or judicial resolution, but rather should be fulfilled by the obligated person’s own conviction to meet their children's needs; all of this from the perspective of the natural law obligation that the obligation to pay child support represents.

However, due to the breaches that occur, it must be the legislator who configures this obligation ex lege, and the courts that resolve these conflicts that should not exist, due to the moral and natural demand of the obligated parent not to leave their own children's needs unmet, and never prioritizing their desires and/or preferences over those of the children, since for them these are not desires or preferences, but needs.

Furthermore, if the child support is not paid in the amount stipulated in the agreement or judicial resolution, it will be the parent who remains with them in custody who must replace, with their personal effort, as we have explained, the failure of the obligated person, thus resulting in a double victimization, namely: on the children as those in need of food they do not receive and on the parent who must replace the non-compliant obligated person by having to cover the food that the obligated person fails to provide.

Source of the news: Poder Judicial