Re B (Adoption Order: Jurisdiction To Set Aside): CA 17 Mar 1995

The appellant was an adult in his thirties. He had been adopted at 3 months by an orthodox Jewish couple, and brought up as a Jew. His father was a Muslim Arab from Kuwait, and his mother was a Roman Catholic. He wished to settle in Israel, but was suspected of being an Arab spy and was asked to leave. He was also unable to settle in Kuwait. Having discovered his true origins, he applied to have the adoption order set aside. He now appealed against refusal of the order.
Held: The appeal failed. Swinton Thomas LJ said: ‘In my judgment such an application faces insuperable hurdles. An adoption order has a quite different standing to almost every other order made by a court. It provides the status of the adopted child and of the adoptive parents. The effect of an adoption order is to extinguish any parental responsibility of the natural parents. Once an adoption order has been made, the adoptive parents stand to one another and the child in precisely the same relationship as if they were his legitimate parents, and the child stands in the same relationship to them as to legitimate parents. Once an adoption order has been made the adopted child ceases to be the child of his previous parents and becomes the child for all purposes of the adopters as though he were their legitimate child.’
Swinton Thomas LJ
[1995] EWCA Civ 48, [1995] Fam 239, [1995] 3 FCR 671, [1995] Fam Law 469, [1995] 3 WLR 40, [1995] 3 All ER 333, [1995] 2 FLR 1
Bailii
Adoption Act 1976 52
England and Wales

Updated: 19 July 2021; Ref: scu.276287