Applications were made for orders under section 8 after and informal surrogacy arrangement. The child was now 33 weeks old.
Held: King J said: ‘When the matter came before the High Court it was agreed by all parties . . s54(3) says that the parties must apply for the order during the period of 6 months beginning with the day on which the child is born. There is no provision within the Act to provide for a discretionary extension to the statutory time limit and no one sought to argue that the court could, or should, whether by means of the use of its inherent jurisdiction or otherwise, seek to circumnavigate the mandatory provisions of the statute.
It was recognised by the parties that the policy and purpose of parental orders is to provide for the speedy consensual regularisation of the legal parental status of a child’s carers following a birth resulting from a surrogacy arrangement. Such a policy does not fit comfortably with extensions of time which inevitably result in the continued involvement over a protracted period of the surrogate mother in the lives of the commissioning couple and their child.
A parental order is not therefore an option for this family.’
Judges:
Eleanor King DBE J
Citations:
[2014] EWHC 595 (Fam)
Links:
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – In re X (A Child) (Surrogacy: Time Limit) FD 3-Oct-2014
Extension of Time for Parental Order
The court considered the making of a parental order in respect of a child through surrogacy procedures outside the time limits imposed by the 2008 Act. The child had been born under Indian surrogacy laws. The commissioning parents (now the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Children
Updated: 20 April 2022; Ref: scu.522290