The Court of Second Instance (TSI) has rejected an appeal by a young local man who requested that his father pay him child support until the completion of his master’s degree course, according to a statement by the office of the Court of Final Appeal (TUI) on Thursday.
According to the statement, the ruling noted that while the law requires parents to pay child support for their offspring who have not completed their education, the requirement does not include a master’s degree or above. The ruling also said that the plaintiff chose not to work but to attend a master’s degree course merely because he did not want to work his way up in the labour market. Therefore, the Court of Second Instance said decided to reject his appeal.
Plaintiff born in 1992
The plaintiff, born in 1992, filed a lawsuit in the Family and Juvenile Court at the Court of First Instance (TJB) in 2016 when he was 24 years old. Afterwards, he filed an appeal with the Court of Second Instance after the Family and Juvenile Court rejected his lawsuit.
According to the statement, the plaintiff’s parents, who married in 1989 and were divorced in 2010, have two sons who were born in 1991 and 1992. The plaintiff went to Canada for high-school education in 2008 when he was 16 years old and finally obtained a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in May 2016, according to the statement.
After graduating from the university, the plaintiff chose not to work but to attend a master’s degree course, the statement said, adding that he filed a lawsuit against his father in the Family and Juvenile Court in September 2016, requesting the latter pay him a certain amount of child support on a monthly basis until the completion of his master’s degree course. The statement did not mention the subject of the plaintiff’s master degree.
The statement said that during the hearing of the case, the Family and Juvenile Court referred to Article 1735 of the Macau Civil Code, according to which if children have not completed their education or other professional training when reaching the age of majority – which is 18 in Macau, the parents are still obliged to provide their offspring with child support and pay for their safety, health and education, in so far as it is reasonable to require the parents to comply with the requirement, and the duration of the obligation shall be limited to the length of time required for the children to complete their education or professional training. The court considered that for this case, the key question was how to define the meaning of “education or other professional training” mentioned in this article.
Article 1735
According to the statement, the Family and Juvenile Court considered that “education or other professional training” mentioned in Article 1735 refers to a person’s acquisition of knowledge that enables the person to engage in a particular occupation so that the person can finally become “an independent individual”, thereby no longer having to depend on his or her parents.
According to the statement, the Family and Juvenile Court considered that regardless of which kind of education system, in general a bachelor’s degree or an undergraduate master’s degree (obtained by a student who starts at undergraduate level but is eventually being awarded a master’s degree without obtaining a bachelor’s degree) is sufficient for a person to join the labour market. Consequently, having obtained a bachelor’s degree or an undergraduate master’s degree constitutes the completion of “education or other professional training” mentioned in Article 1735.
According to the statement, the Family and Juvenile Court noted that higher-level academic courses – namely a master’s degree course or doctoral course – entail more profound studies and research, based on general university education, in order to acquire further professional knowledge in a particular field. Consequently, the court determined that a master’s degree course or doctoral course is not covered by the concept of “education or other professional training” mentioned in Article 1735.
According to the statement, the Family and Juvenile Court noted that the plaintiff was 24 years old when he obtained a bachelor’s degree in 2016, which enabled him to engage in a particular occupation. The court considered that if the plaintiff’s parents or either one of them was requested to pay child support until the acquirement of a higher academic degree, it would go beyond the spirit of Article 1,735 of the Civil Code. Therefore, the Family and Juvenile Court rejected the plaintiff’s lawsuit, the statement said.
The plaintiff decided to file an appeal to the Court of Second Instance, the statement said.
According to the statement, the Court of Second Instance determined that the ruling made by the Family and Juvenile Court was a correct decision. According to the Macau Post Daily, the Court of Second Instance further added that the plaintiff chose not to work but to attend a master’s degree course not due to insufficient academic qualifications but merely because he did not want to work his way up in the labour market, the statement said, adding that therefore the Court of Second Instance determined that the father is no longer obliged to bear the expenses of the plaintiff, thereby rejecting his appeal.
