Parliamentary Debates on Joint Custody Legislation

The Parliament of Aragón (a Spanish autonomous community) approved two laws regulating joint custody during a fairly short period of time: the first was Law 2/2010, according to which judges were to give preference to this type of custody in the event of contentious separation or divorce; and the other was Law 6/2019, which abolished this preference. This paper analyses, from a legisprudential perspective, the parliamentary debates on both laws. It assesses the extent (the spectrum and the depth of the reasons given) and the structural correctness of the legislative justification they contain, as well as some aspects of their dialectical quality (the exhaustiveness and, in the debates on Law 2/2010, the discussion on the consequences of the law). In all the debates analysed, the right-wing parties’ position was in favour of prioritising joint custody, which they consider to have beneficial effects, both for the interests of the child and for the equality between parents. The left-wing parties were opposed to or, at least, reluctant to the measure. However, for the first law the parliamentary procedure enabled a compromise on a text that was accepted by nearly the whole chamber. This agreement was established around the principles and the assumption of a priori positions on joint custody, with little attention being paid to aspects related to the implementation of the law and the opinion of experts. Almost 9 years later, the left-wing parties put forward a joint proposal for the repeal of the measure, which was opposed by the right-wing groups. In the debate preceding the second law, expert considerations and arguments concerning the social effect and impact of the regulation were more prominent, although they were still not explicitly mentioned. In particular, MPs overlooked some latent effects, mainly concerning the allocation of the family home and the establishment of alimony, which are at the root of the social problems leading to the suppression of the preference for joint custody.