A Heritage week reminder — the amount still has to cash after the long weekend
Thursday is a public holiday. Friday the child still eats
Heritage Day falls on Thursday this year. A maintenance file that is adjourned “to after the long weekend” without an interim figure is how a child’s week becomes a rumour. Section 15 of the Maintenance Act still asks for food, clothing, a roof, medical care and a term of school. Write the number that can buy those things before the court rises for the holiday, even if the full enquiry waits for Monday. Living heritage, in this room, is the older African and common-law duty that a parent does not become a stranger to a child's table merely by leaving the house. Ubuntu is not a substitute for an amount. It is the reason the amount must be written so that it can be enforced.
Means, needs, and the number that can be explained
Section 15(3) still asks the court to weigh the child's reasonable needs against the means of both parents. An offer that cannot buy a term of school fees is not a gesture the Act is required to admire. Emoluments attachment, a warrant of execution, attachment of debt, and — where the default is wilful — the criminal remedies in Chapter 5 remain the teeth of the statute. Credit-bureau listing of defaulters under the 2015 amendments is no longer a rumour. Interim relief under Magistrates' Courts Rule 58 still exists so that a child does not live on a hope while a divorce takes a year. SASSA grants are not a substitute for a parent's common-law duty. A foster-child grant still requires a children's-court order. Informal kinship care, however real, is not the same document. Write the difference.
A lunchbox, a calculator, a child's week. The order has to cash.
A working method for the maintenance Monday
• Needs first, in the child's language: school, clinic, transport, food, a room. Then means. Then the number.
• Both parents remain liable. An absent parent is not an absent duty.
• Write interest, costs, medical-aid shortfalls and the date of the first payment. A silent clause becomes next month's variation.
• Enforcement is part of the order. An unenforced maintenance order is a letter the child cannot cash.
A note from Neelan Karikan. The greatest need in that room is to be understood. Write the amount as if the child might one day read the page, because authority that cannot be recognised is only power.