When I have a bit of time, I sometimes scan judgements from the court of appeal and pick out any interesting care/adoption related ones to read. I've learned a lot about how the courts make their decisions, adoption law and also heard about some very interesting adoption/fostering cases this way.
Anyway, this morning I had a look and there are 3 interesting (to me anyway) judgments there now, 1 of which concerns overturning an adoption order. I felt a bit conflicted after reading that judgement and wondered what other adoptive parents (or adoptees or social workers or anyone reall) feel about how permanent adoption orders are and when or if you think it's ever okay to overturn one?
The bones of the case in question were that the relationship between an adoped girl and her adoptive parents had totally broken down, the girl was clearly very troubled and now in care for good, the adoptive mother didn't want any more contact or anything. So after talking with a few professionals the local authority thought that it would be in the childs best interests if the adoption order was overturned. The adoptive mother agreed, so did the Guardian etc. Because there's no legal provision to overturn an adoption in these circumstances, they had to go to the High Court and ask them whether the court would allow hearings for an adoption to be overturned in these circumstances or not.
The judges turned them down, and they had quite a few reasons why they didn't think it would be a good idea to change the reasons why an adoption order could be overturned and that it wasn't a good idea in that case to take things any further.
As I said, I feel very conflicted by the idea that an adoption could be overturned at all, apart from the very specific circumstances it's already allowed to be overturned in (which is if the correct legal procedure wasn't followed or if a mother everyone thought was relinquishing, was actually being coerced/forced to sign away her rights). The only case I'm aware of in recent years was one a couple of years ago, where the court (because of the LA's mistake) didn't give notice to a birth mother of the final hearing (wrong address). So the birth mother was denied her final opportunity to appeal as she had the right to do. She appealed the adoption order and the whole adoption order was overturned (months after the celebration hearing etc) and it all had to go back to court again while the courts decided if she could appeal the placement order as well (she couldn't and the adoption was refinalised but correctly the second time).
Anyway, I can't judge anything about this case because there was very little background in the judgement, but in general...I feel that the adoption orders for my kids are as final as giving birth ie. no way back, no reversing to what it was before. I'm the legal parent for good. That doesn't mean I wouldn't ever disrupt, because I know full well that some adoptees need to go back into care for safety's sake or other serious reasons. I've seen enough disruptions and been close enough myself with my DD1 many years ago, to know that sometimes children can't live at home. But I'm talking about the actual legal parenthood bit here. Even if my children had to go into care, my view is that they're mine legally, and I will always be their legal mum whether it's safe for them to live with/have contact with me or not.
But what if adoptiove parents WANT to overturn if, what if it seems to be in a childs best interests to overturn it? I don't know. My gut still says, you can't overturn giving birth because the relationship has permanently broken down, no matter how much everyone might wish it that way. But I appreciate that some poeple might feel differently?
Under what circumstances should an adoption order be able to be overturned in? 