The expediency of questioning of a child in court during the determination of place of residence
Authors: Zhuravleva Marharyta 
Published: September 2021

The modern theory of psychology and the practice of forensic psychological expertise, in cases related to child upbringing and living arrangement disputes, allows to confidently claim that the questioning of a child under the age of 14 in court is always a stressful situation for him/her and an extremely inefficient procedure for obtaining information in order to establish an objective truth. Firstly, it is due to the age-based characteristics of children and their psyche development peculiarities, and secondly – to the external conditions, such as parents, pressure from the entourage, etc. Parents may knowingly or unknowingly involve a child in loyalty conflict, which negatively affects the child’s psychological state and prevents the court from drawing an objective conclusion on a true wish of a minor to reside with a particular parent.

The aim of the article is the psychological substantiation of inexpediency of questioning of a child in court in order to determine his/her place of residence with father or mother after their divorce and during resolving the other controversial issues of child custody.

When considering the issue of summoning a child, judges incessantly use the provision of article 171 of the Family Code of Ukraine – if a child is able to express his/her opinion, he/she must be heard. At the same time, judges often interpret this provision as a requirement to question a child directly during the court hearing. However, according to the author, this approach contradicts the European one and does not take into account that in order to prevent a negative impact on the child psychological state, obtaining his/her opinion should take place in the atmosphere of friendship, trust and understanding, by a person who was specially trained for this purpose.

The article reveals the problem that it is difficult for the court to determine the authenticity of the child’s choice between parents, which is due to the lack of volitional regulation, the absence of developed ability to reflection and other age-based characteristics of a child.

The author of the article reveals the concept of loyalty conflict (conflict of choice between parents) as the process of involvement of a child in parents’ conflicting relationship, and provides the examples of conscious or subconscious actions and statements of the child’s entourage that force him/her to make a choice between parents and to reject the «unwanted one» of them, which brings complicated psychological claims to a child, leads to his/her neuroticism and other psychological disorders.

The possible reasons for the authentic («real») reluctance of a child to communicate with one of the parents had been outlined in the article. The necessity to involve a qualified specialist (expert-psychologist) in the process of obtaining the child’s opinion has been substantiated, in the form of questioning of a child in the «Green room» or ordering of a psychological expertise.

Keywords:loyalty conflict, questioning of a child, parental alienation syndrome