Can an adoption be overturned?

[Dennis]

Hi,

In a previous post I'd touched on the legal adoption of a first child by the mother's parents and that the 2nd child born to same unmarried couple was legally the nephew/niece of the 1st child. The result, I believe, was that legally the 1st child was the uncle/aunt of the 2nd child even if they are biologically siblings.

As a follow-up to that I'd be interested to know if there is any legal precedent for the 1st child being reinstated, legally, as the sibling of the 2nd child and as the legal child of the biological mother?


Cheers!! dennis

[Currie]

Hello Dennis,

Your previous post is here viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12830&p=100403&hilit=#p100403

Section 7 of the original 1930 Adoption legislation states: “An adoption order or an interim order may be made in respect of a child under the age of twenty-one years who has already been the subject of an adoption order, and, upon any application for such further adoption order, the adopter or adopters under the adoption order last previously made shall, if living, be deemed to be the parent or parents of the child for all the purposes of this Act.”

The Section provides that a child may be adopted more than once. Perhaps the unmarried parents could have adopted the child back off their own parents had they felt the need to do so. However, the Act, in its original form, applies to unmarried children under the age of 21 years. I imagine the child in your case would have been well over that age for quite some time.

There was some discussion about revocation of Adoption Orders in this 1954 report:

Home Office, Scottish Home Department. Report of the Departmental Committee on the Adoption of Children. 1953-54.
Page 39
REVOCATION OF ORDERS
139. Some evidence was received about the advisability or otherwise of providing for an adoption order to be revoked or annulled in certain circumstances. We are convinced that an adoption order should be final in all circumstances except (1) when it is quashed on appeal, (2) when it is superseded by a further adoption order, and (3) when a court has exercised the power (which we recommend in paragraph 247) to annul an adoption order after a child who has been adopted by his father or mother has been legitimated. We heard of several cases where people, whose adopted child had developed a serious mental or physical defect, were anxious to have the adoption order revoked, but, as we said in paragraph 21, we do not think it would be right to provide for revocation in such circumstances. The result of doing so would surely be to undermine the position of adopted children by exposing them to hazards which do not exist for children living with their own parents. We were told also of a case in which a County Court, on the application of the adopted person, who had then reached the age of twenty-one, made an order purporting to quash the adoption order which had been made by a Magistrates' Court years, before. We do not consider it would be any more desirable to provide for an adoption order to be revocable on the application of the adopted person than it would be to enable the adopters to get the order revoked, for this also would tend to prevent the full assimilation of the adopted child into the family.

The Departmental Committee doesn’t sound too impressed by the County Court order purporting to quash an adoption order. Does that rate as a legal precedent?

Those unmarried parents are the real father and mother of both children, always have been always will be. The two children are siblings, always have been always will be. No government or judge or lawyer can change any of that. The persons who did the adopting have taken on the role of parents and the adoptee has taken on the role of their child. This arrangement has been reinforced and protected by legislation. The multitude of theoretical new relatives and ancestors acquired by the adoptee are really just honorary.

That’s what I think,
All the best,
Alan

[Dennis]

Thanks Alan:)

So would the biological mother have to avail of counsel to reacquire her status as the legal guardian of the child? Since the child had known of the adoption for about 8 years prior to a marriage then who would they have on the record of marriage as parents? Would the marriage document note the adoptive parents as adoptive parents; is the marriage record a legal record or a biological record?


Regards. dennis

[Currie]

Hello Dennis,

I think if someone wanted to chase up such a thing they would possibly need to consult someone in the legal profession, preferably starting at the bottom. I honestly don’t really know the legal procedure or if in fact there is one. Maybe some of the organisations involved in finding birth parents etc could offer some advice. I can’t think of their names at the moment.

Wouldn’t the parent’s names on the marriage record be just information provided by the informant? I doubt it would have any particular status. As we’ve seen many times on this forum parents names on marriage certificates can be wrong and that doesn’t change anything legally.

Alan

[Dennis]

Hi. Alan,

I've ordered the marriage record, which should provide a starting point of whether you can 'knowingly' state that your adoptive parents are your parents without attention to the fact that they had adopted you or for provision of the known biological parents. I know I'm headed down a road that may be uncomfortable but is genealogy about finding the truth and amending the record or is it best to just leave it all alone while generations down the road are presented with a record of misinformation?

Regards. dennis

[LesleyB]

Hi Dennis

whether you can 'knowingly' state that your adoptive parents are your parents without attention to the fact that they had adopted you or for provision of the known biological parent

As far as I'm aware there is no "choice" involved; if a person was adopted after 1930 in Scotland, then the process was a legal one, and on marriage you are obliged to state your legal parents i.e. the adoptive ones (even if the person in question is well aware who the biological parents are). There is no provision for the biological parents to be mentioned as she/they (it is often only the mother) signed documents at the time of the adoption giving up all parental rights.

These days, if reporting an event, e,g, death, marriage, because the registrars all have access to DIGROS, I have heard that they tend to check the facts as they go. (I know of a situation recently when a death was being reported and the informant could not accurately remember the names of his parents, so the marriage of the parents was looked up as the death info was being put together)

Best wishes
Lesley