Comments on the Need for Immediate Child Maintenance Benefits

The legal system in Poland aims to guarantee the protection of a child’s non-material and property interests. To this end, guided by the principle of the child’s welfare, the Family and Guardianship Code regulates the institution of child maintenance. The task of this institution is to provide the child with the right conditions for his / her growth and development. Maintenance can take the form of cash or the personal efforts of the parents to raise the child. However, life experience shows that most often, a parent’s maintenance obligation to a child is carried out in the form of transferring money. Nevertheless, the child’s receipt of maintenance payments from a parent involves lengthy court proceedings; this in turn threatens the economic security of the child. For this reason, this article undertakes a consideration of the need to introduce immediate maintenance payments into the Polish legal system; the author refers not only to the existing position of the doctrine, but also to the solutions existing in German law. The entire consideration is based on the presentation of the state de lege lata and the formulation of postulates de lege ferenda.