LA PROGRESIVA DESNATURALIZACIÓN DE LAS RELACIONES PATERNO-FILIALES.

Abstract

This paper looks at the situation of parent/child relations in the light of recent years' headline news. News items and arresting incidents are examined to locate the technical problems their resolution poses to judicial operators and ultimately to highlight the real conflicts at the heart of the problems facing the family as an institution. Diverse aspects expressly addressed in the Civil Code are considered, such as parents' duty to watch over their children and bring them up (CC, art. 154), the exercise of parental authority by an unemancipated minor (CC, art. 157) and underage children's capacity to act (CC, art. 162). Different rulings of minor case law are taken into account, as is important legislation that has directly or indirectly had a crucial influence on the distortion of today's parent/child regime (Constitutional Act 1/1996 on legal protection for minors, Constitutional Act 1/2004 on measures of comprehensive protection against gender violence, Act 54/2007 on international adoption, Constitutional Act 2/2010 on sexual and reproductive health and the voluntary termination of pregnancy). In conclusion, the most noticeable alterations perceived in parent/child relations just now are the following: a) the ongoing tendency to stray away from the strictly private realm and toward control by public law; b) the loss of the relationship's original bilateral nature, such that now only parents have duties; c) the absolute priority of the child's interest over any other hypothetical interests involved; d) the definitive acceptance of underage children's gradual acquisition of the capacity to act (CC, art. 1263.1, vs. CA 1/1996). Nonetheless, in this recent evolution of the parent/child concept, the frequent contradictions of legislators must not be overlooked - contradictions that sometimes lead to striking results that do nothing to benefit future relations between parents and children (e.g., PC, art. 153, and CC, art. 154).