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Key part of the document for me is paragraph 8.
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Key part of the document for me is paragraph 8.
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- When performing the welfare evaluation, weighing and balancing the parent's ultimate prospects of success as well as the impact upon the child if the parent is or is not given leave to oppose, ten points should be borne in mind.• Prospect of success relates to the prospect of resisting the making of an adoption order not the prospect of ultimately having the child restored to the parent.
• The two issues – change in circumstance and solid grounds for seeking leave – almost invariably will be intertwined.
• Once a change of circumstances as well as solid grounds for seeking leave have been established, the judge must give very careful consideration indeed to whether the child's welfare really does necessitate the refusal of leave. Adoption is of "last resort" and "where nothing else will do."
• The judicial assessment must take into account all of the risks as well as the advantages of each of the two options.
• The court must have proper evidence but this does not mean judges will always need to hear oral evidence. Typically, an application under s.47(5) can fairly and appropriately be dealt with on the basis of written evidence and submissions.
• The greater the change in circumstances and the more solid the parent's grounds for seeking leave to oppose, the more cogent and compelling the arguments based on the child's welfare must be if leave to oppose is refused.
• The mere fact that a child has been placed with prospective adopters cannot be determinative nor can the mere passage of time.
• What is paramount in every adoption case is the welfare of the child "throughout his life." The court should take a medium and a long term view of the child's development and not accord excessive weight to what appear likely to be short term or transient problems.
• Judges must be careful not to attach undue weight to the argument that leave should be refused because of the adverse impact upon the adopters, and thus on the child, of their having to pursue a contested adoption application. In appropriate cases the disruptive effects of an order giving a parent leave to oppose can be minimised by firm judicial case management.
• Judges are urged to bear in mind the wise and humane words of Wall LJ in Re P (supra) – "the test should not be set too high because … parents should not be discouraged either from bettering themselves or from seeking to prevent the adoption of their child by the imposition of a test which is unachievable."
