For children who have been adopted it is clearly a profound event. Understandably many adopted children when adults want to learn more about the circumstances of their adoption and their birth family.
The role of local authorities
Local authorities have a duty to maintain adoption services meeting the needs of:
- Children who may be adopted and their parents and guardians
- Those wishing to adopt a child
- Adopted persons, their parents, natural parents and former guardians.
On 29 September 2014 the Government announced that “children, grandchildren and other relatives of adopted adults can now trace back through their ancestors’ lives – helping them to unearth their family history, discover more about their medical background and reach out to long lost relatives”.
Guidelines for applications to disclose information
When a court is faced with an application to disclose information from its file the following guidelines should come into play:
- The court has a discretion whether to disclose information contained in its own file to the applicant who makes the application to see that file.
- In considering whether or not the court should exercise its discretion to disclose the information the court should have regard to all the circumstances of the case and should exercise its discretion justly.
- The public policy of maintaining public confidence in the confidentiality of adoption files is an important consideration.
- The duration of time that has elapsed since the order was made, and the question of whether any or all of the affected parties are deceased are important considerations.
- The nature of the connection between the applicant seeking the information with the information that they seek from the court file is an important consideration.
- The potential impact of disclosure on any relevant third parties, and any safeguards that could be put in place to ameliorate this is an important consideration.
If you wish to discuss anything covered in this article, please contact our Children team.