Nepal-ing behaviour (I’m sorry, I’ll just get my coat)

I wrote about part 1 of this curious case where a couple living in Dubai adopted a child in Nepal, then they separated and the Court was having to deal with (a) was this a lawful adoption and if not could it be made lawful and (b) where should the child live

 

https://suesspiciousminds.com/2016/06/29/application-to-dismiss-a-guardian-for-bias/

And as you can see from the title, part 1 was chiefly about the mother’s application that the Guardian was biased (which did not succeed)

 

Part 2 doesn’t disappoint either.  It was heard by Mr Justice MacDonald, who does get interesting cases and does them well.

Re QS v RS & Anor 2016

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/2470.html

 

T, the girl adopted from Nepal is now 12 years old. She has been living with one or both of this couple since 2008 and within the 8 years of her time with them, SEVEN have been in profoundly acrimonious court proceedings. It is hard not to think that she might have been better off remaining in Nepal.

 

She was adopted in 2008 by the couple, who were at that time British citizens living in Britain. (Nepal at the time of the adoption was not one of those countries where the UK has an arrangement that makes adoptions from that country lawful if a process is correctly followed. It is now, however. )   The parents then lived for a time in Dubai and then they separated, with the adoptive mother moving back to the UK.

 

As MacDonald J explains, the history of litigation about this child has been horrendous and protracted

 

 

• The background to this matter is in part contentious. Regrettably, the parents have now been engaged in one form of litigation or another since 2009. Within that context, I made clear to both parties at the outset of these proceedings that in determining the issues before the court I would not be assisted by a detailed forensic exploration of each and every allegation and counter-allegation levelled by the parents over the course of the past 8 years. It is within this context that I begin by examining the background that leads up to the present situation.

 

 

Curiously, although T is 12 years old, she was born (will be born?) in 2062.

 

Yes, you read that date right. 2062.

 

That’s because the Nepalese calendar works differently to ours

It has been possible to further refine the details of T’s early life from documentation that has become available since I gave my first judgment in this matter on 15 October 2015. By the Nepalese Bikram Samvat calendar, on 20 August 2062 T was found abandoned in a temple in Chitwan in the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal (although I note that other documentation seen by the expert appears to suggest that T was discovered near a bridge in Kathmandu).

 

It does strike me as somewhat peculiar that in our financially challenged times  that the High Court is spending time and legal aid in litigating about a girl born in Nepal, who lives in Dubai and won’t be born for another 46 years….

 

Under the law of Nepal the adoption of T was lawful in Nepal. Following the adoption, the parents took her from Nepal to Dubai, and in Dubai T was granted British Citizenship. If you are thinking to yourself, hang on, what power has anyone in Dubai got to grant British citizenship on a girl from Nepal, you are not alone

 

• Following their adoption of T the parents moved with her to live in Dubai. Following her arrival in Dubai T was granted British Citizenship. I have had sight of a Certificate of Registration dated the 16 September 2008, registering T as a British citizen. The precise circumstances in which T was granted British Citizenship remain, despite considerable efforts by the parties, unclear. However, the ‘Adoption Guarantee Letter’ dated 5 December 2006 to which I have already referred states the intention to grant British citizenship for T upon her adoption by the parents by way of the discretion afforded to the Home Secretary by s 3(1) of the British Nationality Act 1981. That letter was signed by the British Consul in Kathmandu. Within this context, and in accordance with the intent of the ‘Adoption Guarantee Letter’ T’s Certificate of Registration makes clear that she was registered as a British Citizen by the Home Secretary pursuant to the power conferred by s 3(1) of the 1981 Act on 16 September 2008.

 

 

 

After the parents split up and mother issued her petition for divorce in Guildford County Court, she moved to Sharjah with T. If you were not previously aware that Sharjah was all that close to Guildford, it was news to me also.

There then followed all sorts of peculiarities, culminating with the mother requiring a Royal Pardon AND a Court decision in Dubai that neither the mother nor the father were the legal parent of T, but custody (I use the term that’s in the judgment) was awarded to the father. The mother was then deported and came to England.  The mother in Dubai has no legal rights regarding T and no right to see her.  Also, given the difficulties that she had with the Royal Pardon, entering Dubai places her at risk of a complaint being made and her being detained and prevented from leaving.

 

The Judge remarks upon the mother’s Facebook campaign

 

 

• One further matter of background requires mention. Following her deportation, the mother commenced a campaign on Facebook, with a Facebook page entitled “Rescue T“. Whilst the mother contends that this site evolved, ultimately, into a blog through which she seeks to assist people in a similar situation to her own, it is plain on the mother’s own evidence that over a significant period of time she placed into the public domain information that concerned matters intensely private to T. The mother also used the medium to address T publically. The father asserts, in evidence that was not challenged, that at Christmas 2014 the mother posted publically the following message to T “he even abandons you for a significant part of the Christmas holiday to go abroad leaving you alone with a maid for days on end. How utterly, incredibly selfish! Again, you best interests are being ignored. I would NEVER, NEVER do this to you!” The father had been compelled to travel abroad to see a dying relative. At the instigation of the mother the case also featured heavily in the press. The father contends he has been vilified on social media and that the mother has given a false account of him to the newspapers.
• Within the context of the mother’s online activity, the father contends that his efforts to facilitate contact between the mother and T from June 2013 onwards, including the offer of shared holidays in a neutral country provided proper arrangements for T’s passport were put in place and offers to pay for the mother to visit T at Christmas 2013, were met with no response. The father states that he encouraged T to send emails to her mother on special occasions and there are examples of those messages in the bundle.
• The mother concedes that she did not reply to emails from T wishing her mother a happy birthday in November 2014 and a happy Valentine’s day in February 2015. The mother asserted during her evidence that she could not be sure that the emails were from T although, significantly in my judgment, she later said that she did not reply because this form of communication did not “fit” with her (the mother’s) requests for contact. The mother further conceded that she did not respond to a request from the father that she provide him with T’s vaccination records, following which refusal T had to be re-vaccinated and suffered a dangerous reaction to one of the additional inoculations, leading to her admission to hospital.

 

 

 

 

The Judge carefully explains the process by which an adoption which is not currently lawful in English law can be recognised and legitimised by English law. Care has to be taken, because this child is ordinarily resident in Dubai where court proceedings have made a determination that the adoption is not lawful and that neither mother or father have any legal rights over T and are not her parents. So the Judge has to tread softly.

 

The statutory power is fairly simple

 

 

• if the court is satisfied that it is appropriate to recognise the foreign adoption at common law the court may, if the requisite conditions are met, make a declaration pursuant to the Family Law Act 1986 s 57, which section provides as follows:

 

57 Declarations as to adoptions effected overseas.

E+W

(1) Any person whose status as an adopted child of any person depends on whether he has been adopted by that person by either—

(a) a Convention adoption, or an overseas adoption within the meaning of the Adoption and Children Act 2002, or

(b) an adoption recognised by the law of England and Wales and effected under the law of any country outside the British Islands,

may apply to the High Court or a county court for one (or for one or, in the alternative, the other) of the declarations mentioned in subsection (2) below.

(2) The said declarations are—

(a) a declaration that the applicant is for the purposes of section 39 of the Adoption Act 1976 or section 67 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 the adopted child of that person;

(b) a declaration that the applicant is not for the purposes of that section the adopted child of that person.

(3) A court shall have jurisdiction to entertain an application under subsection (1) above if, and only if, the applicant—

(a) is domiciled in England and Wales on the date of the application, or

(b) has been habitually resident in England and Wales throughout the period of one year ending with that date.

 

 

A trusty barometer of whether things in law are going to get complicated is where the Judge has to begin their overview of the law with a Lord Denning case, particularly one itself that refers back to a case decided before electricity was something other than an amusing new phenomenon that made dead frogs’ legs twitch and so it proves to be here

 

 

• The Adoption and Children Act 2002 s 66(1)(e) defines “adoption” as including “an adoption recognised by the law of England and Wales, and effected under the law of any other country”. It has long been established that the recognition of a foreign adoption may be achieved by recourse to the common law. In Re Valentine’s Settlement at 841, a case concerning the recognition of an adoption effected under the law of South Africa, Lord Denning endorsed the observation of James LJ in Re Goodman’s Trusts (1881) 17 Ch.D 266 at 297:

 

“I start with the proposition stated by James LJ in In re Goodman’s Trusts: ‘The family relation is at the foundation of all society, and it would appear almost an axiom that the family relation, once duly constituted by the law of any civilised country, should be respected and acknowledged by every other member of the great community of nations’. That was a legitimation case, but the like principle applies to adoption. But when is the status of adoption duly constituted? Clearly it is so when it is constituted in another country in similar circumstances as we claim for ourselves. Our courts should recognise a jurisdiction which mutatis mutandis they claim for themselves: see Travers v. Holley [1953] P. 246, 257; [1953] 3 W.L.R. 507; [1953] 2 All E.R. 794 , C.A. We claim jurisdiction to make an adoption order when the adopting parents are domiciled in this country and the child is resident here. So also, out of the comity of country when the adopting parents are domiciled there and the child is resident there.”

Lord Denning concluded further as follows in relation to the circumstances in which a foreign adoption would be recognised at common law:

“Apart from international comity, we reach the same result on principle. When a court of any country makes an adoption order for an infant child, it does two things: (1) it destroys the legal relationship theretofore existing between the child and its natural parents, be it legitimate or illegitimate; (2) it creates the legal relationship of parent and child between the child and its adopting parents, making it their legitimate child. It creates a new status in both, namely, the status of parent and child. Now it has long been settled that questions affecting status are determined by the law of the domicile. This new status of parent and child, in order to be recognised everywhere, must be validly created by the law of the domicile of the adopting parent. You do not look to the domicile of the child: for that has no separate domicile of its own. It takes its parents’ domicile. You look to the parents’ domicile only. If you find that a legitimate relationship of parent and child has been validly created by the law of the parents’ domicile at the time the relationship is created, then the status so created should be universally recognised throughout the civilised world, provided always that there is nothing contrary to public policy in so recognising it. That general principle finds expression in the judgment of Scott L.J. in In re Luck’s Settlement Trusts, Walker v. Luck [1940] Ch. 864, 907-908; sub nom. In re Luck, Walker v. Luck, 56 T.L.R. 915; [1940] 3 All E.R. 307 C.A. I think it is correct, notwithstanding that the majority in that case created a dubious exception to it. But it is an essential feature of this principle that the parents should be domiciled in the country at the time: for no provision of the law of a foreign country will be regarded in the English courts as effective to create the status of a parent in a person not domiciled in that country at the time: see In re Grove, Vaucher v. Treasury Solicitor (1888) 40 Ch.D. 216; 4 T.L.R. 762 , C.A. (legitimation by subsequent marriage); In re Wilson, decd., Grace v. Lucas [1954] Ch. 733; [1954] 2 W.L.R. 1097; [1954] 1 All E.R. 997 (adoption). I ought to say, however, that in order for adoption to be recognised everywhere, it seems to me that, in addition to the adopting parents being domiciled in the country where the order is made, the child should be ordinarily resident there: for it is the courts of ordinary residence which have the pre-eminent jurisdiction over the child: see In re P. (G. E.) (An Infant) [1965] Ch. 568, 585; [1965] 2 W.L.R. 1, 11; [1964] 3 All E.R. 977, C.A. The child is under their protection and it would seem only right that those courts should be the courts to decide whether the child should be adopted or not.”

 

• Within the context of the present case, I also pause to note the dissenting judgment of Salmon LJ in Re Valentine’s Settlement at 852:

 

“It has been suggested that according to the theory of our law no foreign adoption should be recognised unless, at the time it was made, both adopted child and adoptive parent were domiciled within the jurisdiction of the foreign country and that this appeal should be decided accordingly. Our law, however, develops in accordance with the changing needs of man. These have always been ascertained by experience rather than by the rigid application of abstract theory. Experience has shown that there are sound sociological reasons for recognising an adoption in circumstances such as these. Adoption – providing that there are proper safeguards – is greatly for the benefit of the adopted child and of the adoptive parents, and also, I think, of civilised society, since this is founded on the family relationship. It seems to me that we should be slow to refuse recognition to an adoption order made by a foreign court which applies the same safeguards as we do and which undoubtedly had jurisdiction over the adopted child and its natural parents. The laws of adoption in South Africa are very nearly the same as our own. The principles underlying them are the same. The whole emphasis is upon the welfare of the child and elaborate precautions are laid down for assuring that the adoption order shall not be made unless it is for the benefit of the child; the consent of the natural parents is required. It is difficult to see why in these circumstances, unless compelled to do so, our courts should refuse to recognise these adoption orders made lawfully in South Africa which conferred nothing but benefits on all the parties concerned.”

and at 854:

“Mr. Templeman, in the course of an exceptionally able argument, emphasised what he described as the danger and absurdity of a childless man and wife being able to go abroad for a short holiday and return the mother and father of three children. It may or may not be absurd but the danger would exist only if the considerations for adoption in the foreign country concerned were quite alien to our own and our courts were obliged to recognise the adoption whatever the circumstances. This is not so, for it is always open to our courts on grounds of public policy to refuse to recognise a foreign adoption even when the domicile of the adoptive father is impeccable.”

 

• I further note that it is clear that Dankwerts LJ came to his conclusion that he must concur with the judgment of Lord Denning with some reluctance (Re Valentine’s Settlement at 846) and that Lord Denning himself recognised that the observations of Salmon LJ cast doubt on his conclusion that the courts of this country will only recognise an adoption in another country if the adopting parents are domiciled there, stating at 843 that:

 

“I may, however, be wrong about this: because I recognise the force of the opinion which Salmon L.J. will express, namely, that the courts of this country should recognise an adoption in another country if it is effected by an order of the courts of that country, provided always that their courts apply the same safeguards as we do.”

 

 

• Nonetheless, the common law rule established by Re Valentine’s Settlement is clear and has been applied consistently since 1965. Within this context, pursuant to the Adoption and Children Act 2002 s 49(2) domicile (or, in the alternative, habitual residence) is still a part of “the circumstances we claim for ourselves” when constituting a valid domestic adoption, a valid application for an adoption order under the Act requiring at least one of the couple (in the case of an application by a couple) or the applicant (in the case of an application by one person) be domiciled or habitually resident in a part of the British Islands.

 

 

 

In very broad terms, if another country has similar adoption provisions to ourselves, and we would be prepared to make an adoption order of say Nepalese parents who are domiciled here and who adopt a child, we should do the same if British parents adopt a child in Nepal. The difficulty here, however, is that when the British couple adopted T, they were NOT domiciled in Nepal – they were there purely to adopt a child and had no intentions whatsoever of residing or settling there.  That is not a scenario in which a Nepalese couple could adopt in Britain  (it is perfectly legal in Nepalese law, but their law does not have the domicile element – that the person has to be living in the country where they adopt)

 

 

• Within the foregoing context, the criteria for determining whether the court should recognise an adoption made in any country outside Great Britain and valid by the law of that country at common law were articulated by Hedley J in Re T and M (Adoption) [2011] 1 FLR 1487 and Re R (Recognition of Indian Adoption) [2013] 1 FLR 1487 as follows:

 

i) Were the status conditions required by English domestic adoption law replicated or fulfilled in the foreign jurisdiction, including the status conditions as to domicile or habitual residence;ii) Was the adoption obtained wholly lawfully in the foreign jurisdiction in question;

iii) If so, did the concept of adoption in that jurisdiction substantially conform with the English concept of adoption;

iv) If so, was there any public policy consideration that should mitigate against recognition of the foreign adoption.

 

You can immediately see that whilst the parents can answer yes to (ii) the answer to (i) is going to be no. The Court therefore have to consider how much the concept of adoption in Nepal marries u with the English concept.

 

This is becoming terribly niche, so suffice to say that if you are involved in a case where you need to know the law on a s57 Family Law Act 1986 application to legitimise an overseas adoption, this is the case to find it all in. The Judge DID legitimise the adoption in English law.

 

 

• In this case I am satisfied that recognition would be manifestly in T’s best interests. Recognition of the adoption at common law would confirm the legal relationship of parent and child that T no doubt assumes exists between her parents and herself. In circumstances where Mr Power is clear that T, as a child adopted from a foreign country with parents who have separated, has an enhanced need for certainty as an adopted child in a trans-racial placement, recognition of her adoption will assist in providing this and will assist T developing and making sense of her identity as she grows older. Recognition will also provide T with greater legal certainty throughout her life with respect to such matters as inheritance rights. I agree with Mr Bagchi’s submission that the balance sheet in respect of recognition contains no entries in the debit column from T’s perspective.

 

 

The Judge then had to consider where T should live and with whom she should spend time. All of this is very fact specific, but there’s one issue of general principle.

If you are ever in the witness box and you are asked whether a parent loves their child, THIS is not necessarily the best way to answer that question

 

 

• The mother was unable even to acknowledge the father’s love for T, saying that “in as much as he can love her, I imagine he does” and that “it is a domineering and controlling love done within certain conditions“. The mother’s concluded position in oral evidence appeared to be that T was “probably” physically safe in the care of her father but that she was not emotionally safe, claiming “it is damaging for her to remain with her father, in emotional terms“. These firmly held views of the father’s parenting and his physical and emotional care of T are entirely at odds with all of the other evidence before the court.

 

 

 

The Judge considered all of the issues relating to T and made an order that she should live with the father and have contact with the mother, either in the UAE or England.