Judicature (Northern Ireland) Act 1978

27 Maintenance of wards of court

(1) Subject to the provisions of this section, the High Court may make an order—

(a) requiring either parent of a ward of court to pay to the other parent; or

(b) requiring either parent or both parents of a ward of court to pay to any other person having the care and control of the ward,

such weekly or other periodical sums towards the maintenance and education of the ward as the court thinks reasonable having regard to the means of the person or persons on whom the requirement is imposed.

(2) An order under subsection (1) may require such sums as are mentioned in that subsection to continue to be paid in respect of any period after the date on which the person for whose benefit the payments are to be made ceases to be a minor but not beyond the date on which he attains the age of twenty-one, and any order made as aforesaid may provide that any sum which is payable thereunder for the benefit of that person after he has ceased to be a minor shall be paid to that person himself.

(3) Subject to the provisions of this section, where a person who has ceased to be a minor but has not attained the age of twenty-one has at any time been the subject of an order making him a ward of court, the court may, on the application of either parent of that person or of that person himself, make an order requiring either parent to pay to the other parent, to anyone else for the benefit of that person or to that person himself, in respect of any period not extending beyond the date on which he attains the said age, such weekly or other periodical sums towards his maintenance or education as the court thinks reasonable having regard to the means of the person on whom the requirement in question is imposed.

(4) The court shall have power from time to time by an order under this section to vary or discharge any previous order thereunder.

(5) In this section " parent", in relation to a person (" the child ") who is or has been a ward of court, includes, where the child is illegitimate, a natural parent, where the child has been adopted, an adoptive parent, and where the child (not being a child boarded-out with them by a local or public body or a voluntary organisation) has been treated by spouses as a child of their family, either of those spouses.