Colorado

Family Law

Family Law

Section 14-5-704 – Initiation by state department of human services of support proceeding under Convention

(a) In a support proceeding under this part 7, the state department of human services of this state shall:

(1) Transmit and receive applications; and
(2) Initiate or facilitate the institution of a proceeding regarding an application in a tribunal of this state.
(b) The following support proceedings are available to an obligee under the Convention:

(1) Recognition or recognition and enforcement of a foreign support order;
(2) Enforcement of a support order issued or recognized in this state;
(3) Establishment of a support order if there is no existing order, including, if necessary, determination of parentage of a child;
(4) Establishment of a support order if recognition of a foreign support order is refused under section 14-5-708(b)(2), (4), or (9);
(5) Modification of a support order of a tribunal of this state; and
(6) Modification of a support order of a tribunal of another state or a foreign country.
(c) The following support proceedings are available under the Convention to an obligor against which there is an existing support order:

(1) Recognition of an order suspending or limiting enforcement of an existing support order of a tribunal of this state;
(2) Modification of a support order of a tribunal of this state; and
(3) Modification of a support order of a tribunal of another state or a foreign country.
(d) A tribunal of this state may not require security, bond, or deposit, however described, to guarantee the payment of costs and expenses in proceedings under the Convention.

C.R.S. § 14-5-704

Added by 2015 Ch. 173,§ 32, eff. 7/1/2015.
L. 2015: Entire part R&RE, (HB 15-1198), ch. 173, p. 562, § 32, effective July 1.

COMMENT

This section is designed to enable lawyers and non-lawyers to better understand proceedings under the Convention, which itself is written in terminology unfamiliar to legal proceedings in the United States.

Subsection (a) lists the rights and duties of a support enforcement agency.

Subsection (b) lists what rights and duties are available to an obligee, whether the proceeding is inbound from a Convention country or outbound to a Convention country.

In contrast to the general rule in UIFSA, which attempts to maintain something of parity between the obligor and obligee, subsection (c) limits the rights and duties available to an obligor under the Convention. This reflects the equal treatment ideal espoused by UIFSA in Articles 1 through 6, and the pro-obligee philosophy of the Convention. In actual practice, the results may not be that different. Recall that until replaced by UIFSA, an informal subtitle given to URESA by its leading proponents was “The Runaway Pappy Act.”

Subsection (d) tracks Convention art. 14 (5).

Convention source: art. 6. Specific functions of Central Authorities; art. 10. Available applications; art. 14. Effective access to procedures.

Related to Convention: ch. II. Administrative co-operation, arts. 4-7; ch. III. Applications through central authorities, arts. 9-17.