§ 19-11-120.Application of part; initiation of a proceeding

This section opens Part 3 of the interstate support act, the civil provisions that run from here through Code Section 19-11-138. Subsection (a) says this part applies to all proceedings under the article, except where the article provides otherwise. Two examples of such exceptions: Code Section 19-11-119 says Parts 3 through 6 don’t apply, apart from certain evidence and discovery tools, when a Georgia tribunal has personal jurisdiction over a nonresident; and Code Section 19-11-172(b) says Part 3 doesn’t apply when all the individual parties live in Georgia, the child doesn’t live in the issuing state, and a tribunal here enforces or modifies that state’s order in a registration proceeding.

Subsection (b) says who can start a case and where. An individual petitioner or a support enforcement agency may begin a proceeding in either of two ways. One is to file a petition in an initiating tribunal, which forwards it to a responding tribunal; Code Section 19-11-123 tells a Georgia initiating tribunal how to do that. The other is to file a petition or comparable pleading directly in a tribunal of another state or a foreign country that has or can obtain personal jurisdiction over the respondent.

A parent doesn’t need an agency to begin. But Code Section 19-11-126 requires Georgia’s support enforcement agency — the Department of Human Services, under Code Section 19-11-102(b) — to provide services to a petitioner who asks. Code Section 19-11-130 sets out what the petition must contain, and Code Section 19-11-132(a) says the petitioner may not be required to pay a filing fee or other costs. When a Georgia tribunal receives a petition directly under subsection (b), Code Section 19-11-124(a) requires it to have the petition filed and tell the petitioner where and when. The section was amended in 2013.