Students propose changes to Maintenance of Parents Act

Make guardians, rather than just parents, who have been abandoned by the children they have raised, eligible to seek maintenance. This was one of the proposed legislative changes that SMU law undergraduates Loy Zhi Hao and Priscilla Soh have made to the Maintenance of Parents Act in the inaugural law reform essay competition organised by SMU and the Attorney-General's Chambers. The Act, which enforces maintenance from children who abandon their needy parents, currently applies to four types of claimants – biological and step-parents, as well as parents of illegitimate and adopted children. The undergraduates claimed the first prize at the competition.