The Court of Appeal has dismissed an application to revoke an adoption order on welfare grounds, despite unanimous support from all family members involved, as reported by The Law Society Gazette.
In the case Re X and Y, Sir Andrew McFarlane, president of the Family Division, stated that the court lacked jurisdiction to approve the request from the adoptive mother of two teenage siblings to legally end the adoption. The application was supported by the children, aged 17 and 16, as well as their birth mother, who had maintained a presence in their lives. The siblings had expressed their desire to be “unadopted” during a hearing in the High Court last April, but Mr. Justice Lieven ruled that jurisdiction to revoke an adoption did not exist on purely welfare grounds.
McFarlane, sitting alongside Lord Justice Peter Jackson and Lord Justice Phillips, acknowledged the emotional impact of the decision on the children, admitting that a different outcome might have been possible if welfare-based jurisdiction existed. However, he emphasised the principle that adoption orders are transformative, permanent, and irreversible, creating a relationship akin to a biological one between adopter and child. McFarlane said:
“These are matters of fundamental principle with respect to adoption. The high degree of permanence, from which the benefits to the child of long-term security and stability should flow, is the unique feature that marks adoption out from all other orders made for children; it is, at its core, what adoption is all about.”
The judges supported the submission by the secretary of state for education that allowing adoption orders to be challenged would “gravely damage the lifelong commitment of adopters to their adoptive children”.
The siblings were placed with their adoptive mother in 2012 at the ages of five and four. They later sought continued contact with their birth mother, who subsequently had two more children she has cared for throughout their lives. During the COVID-19 lockdown, the adoptive mother allowed the birth mother and her younger children to move in with her. Eventually, the adopted siblings chose to leave and live with their birth mother.
Parliament has made no provision for the revocation of an adoption order, except in cases where a sole adoptive parent marries or a new adoption order is made. McFarlane noted that there are likely other adoptive relationships that have broken down where individuals may seek revocation. However, he concluded:
“Both the law, as passed by parliament and as previously interpreted by this court, and the policy underlying the statutory adoption regime have inevitably led us to hold as we have done.”