
When not paying child support is economic violence for the SC
The Supreme Court sentenced a man who failed to pay maintenance payments to his family for the offence under Article 227 of the Criminal Code to six months' imprisonment. It also upheld the conviction for the offence of misappropriation of property for having fraudulently misappropriated assets, with a sentence of one year and six months' imprisonment, and a fine of 14 months with a daily fine of 10 euros per day, with subsidiary personal liability of Article 53 of the Criminal Code in the event of non-payment.
Euriux Abogados, the national network with more than 25 years of experience in the market, informs you about this sentence which has the accent on the qualification of the facts: economic violence.
The Supreme Court points out that the failure to pay child support in the amount of 34,639.04 euros "can be configured as a kind of economic violence, given that the breach of this obligation leaves the children themselves in a state of need in which, given their young age and lack of self-sufficiency, they need the support of the person obliged to provide it".
The high court, with the judge's Vicente Magro emphasises that the payment of maintenance is "a moral and natural obligation". Failure to satisfy it requires the other parent "to make an excessive effort in their care and attention towards the children, depriving themselves of attending to their own needs in order to cover the obligations that the person obliged to do so does not fulfil".
"All this determines that we can call these conducts economic violence when there are non-payments of alimony", underlines the Supreme Court.
The judgment emphasises that this non-compliance entails a "double victimisation", that of the children in need of maintenance that they do not receive and that of the other parent, who has to take responsibility for the obligation not met by the non-compliant parent.