Care Proceedings and Adoption of Foreign Nationals: Further Guidance from the Court of Appeal

In the Matter of CB (A Child) [2015] EWCA Civ 888
The President
The lessons of this and other cases are clear but bear repetition. We must be understanding of the concerns about our processes voiced by our European colleagues  [about non-consensual adoption]. We must do everything in our power to ensure that our processes are not subject to justifiable criticisms. This means ensuring that:


i) local authorities and the courts must be appropriately pro-active in bringing to the attention of the relevant consular authorities at the earliest possible opportunity the fact that care proceedings involving foreign nationals are on foot or in contemplation;


ii) the court must, whether or not any of the parties have raised the point, consider at the outset of the proceedings whether the case is one for a transfer in accordance with Article 15 of BIIA: see generally In re E (A Child) (Care Proceedings: European Dimension) Practice Note [2014] EWHC 6 (Fam), [2014] 1 WLR 2670, [2014] 2 FLR 151, paras 31, 35-36;


iii) if there is no transfer in accordance with Article 15, the court, if the local authority's plan is for adoption, must rigorously apply the principle that adoption is 'the last resort' and only permissible 'if nothing else will do' and in doing so must make sure that its process is appropriately rigorous: see In re B-S (Children) (Adoption Order: Leave to Oppose) [2013] EWCA Civ 1146, [2014] 1 WLR 563, [2014] 1 FLR 1035, and Re R (A Child) [2014] EWCA Civ 1625;


iv) in particular, the court must adopt, and ensure that guardians adopt, an appropriately rigorous approach to the consideration of the 'welfare checklist' in section 1(4) of the 2002 Act, in particular to those parts of the checklist which focus attention, explicitly or implicitly, on the child's national, cultural, linguistic, ethnic and religious background and which, in the context of such factors, demand consideration of the likely effect on the child throughout her life of having ceased to be a member of her original family.
In this connection, everyone concerned with such a case needs always to remember the powerful point made by Mostyn J in Re D (Special Guardianship Order) [2014] EWHC 3388 (Fam), [2015] 2 FLR 47, para 1:

1. "If any case illustrates the momentous and very difficult nature of the decisions that have to be made in the Family Division it is this one. My decision will determine whether ED grows up in the Czech Republic, where full respect will be paid to his Czech Roma ethnicity and where it is likely that the parental link will be maintained, or whether he grows up in the United Kingdom as an English boy to become, in adulthood, an Englishman. On this latter footing, being realistic, his Czech Roma heritage will either be extinguished or reduced to insignificance."

That is not, I wish to make clear, a reason for not making an adoption order where the circumstances demand and where nothing else will do. But it does serve to underscore the gravity of the decision which the court has to make in such cases and the pressing need for care and rigour in the process.