§48-11-603 Effect of enactment; operative dates. - West Virginia Statutes

§48-11-603. Effect of enactment; operative dates.
(a) The enactment of this article during the second extraordinary session of the Legislature, one thousand nine hundred ninety-nine, is prospective in operation unless otherwise expressly indicated.

(b) The provisions of section two hundred two of this article, insofar as they provide for parent education and mediation, become operative on the first day of January, two thousand. Until that date, parent education and mediation with regard to custody issues are discretionary unless made mandatory under a particular program or pilot project by rule or direction of the supreme court of appeals or a circuit court.

(c) The provisions of this article that authorize a circuit court in the absence of an agreement of the parents to order an allocation of custodial responsibility and an allocation of significant decision-making responsibility, become operative on the first day of January, two thousand, at which time the primary caretaker doctrine shall be replaced with a system that allocates custodial and decision-making responsibility to the parents in accordance with this article.