If you want the recipe for Milton Keynes v X and Y 2014 it is this
- Open can
- Decant worms from can
- Liberally distribute worms everywhere
[Quick disclaimer – this post and the case deal with issues of faith. I am a heathen unbeliever, and I’m afraid that flippancy is something of a knee-jerk reaction for me. I have genuinely tried to rein that in, and be respectful of other people’s faiths. I may inadvertently have failed to do that, or accidentally said something which will annoy or upset people of any faith. That’s not my intent. I don’t have beliefs myself, but I respect those who do. The same will be true of the comments – keep them respectful please]
The case is here
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/OJ/2014/B102.html
It is a decision from a District Judge, and I actually think that it is a very good judgment – it is thorough, analytical and has a very good innovation of putting a real-person-friendly summary at the end of each section.
I think that it does lose it in the last few paragraphs, notably because you can’t actually tell whether the Judge has made a final order and if so what it is, but it was undoubtedly a difficult case to wrestle with.
Let me stress, that as a decision from a District Judge, it is not binding authority (other than being binding on the particular case concerned), but the DJ is right, it raises important wider issues and the Judge was right to publish it.
If I have the Judge’s gender wrong, I apologise, I had to take a guess at it. In doing so, I realised that my stock gender attribution for Circuit Judges is female and for District Judges male, soI deliberately flipped that around.
The central dilemma in the case is this – in a case involving children of Muslim parents, once the Court has decided that they cannot go home, is it right to weigh into the balance when deciding about adoption the Islamic beliefs about adoption? And can those beliefs tip the balance?
It is somewhat odd that the case doesn’t refer to the lead authority on this very point, which is Newcastle v Z 2005. [Not the Judge’s fault, she ought to have been taken to it by someone]
In the Newcastle case, Mr Justice Munby, as he then was, had to look at this very issue. In that case, he had to look at whether mother was ‘unreasonably withholding her consent’ to adoption, given that her chief objection was based on her faith.
40. It is clear that the mother has a very deep and utterly genuine commitment to Islam.
41. That was apparent from the views she expressed in the course of her evidence, from the way in which she gave that evidence and, indeed, from the way in which she handled and kissed the Quran before taking the oath. I intend no offence when I say that her beliefs come over as the simple, unsophisticated and unquestioning faith of a woman who, despite her twenty-five years in this country, is still very much, I suspect, located socially, emotionally and religiously in the peasant society of Kashmir from which she sprang. But what is clear, and needs to be recognised, is that her faith is both very real and very important to her
[Thank goodness that he intended no offence, when describing her basically as a simple peasant girl with unsophisticated beliefs]
42. Her religious objections to adoption were simply but passionately stated. She considers adoption to be against her religion. She believes that the Quran – much of which she knows by heart – says that it is a mother and father’s responsibility to bring up their children and that adoption is wrong.
“Adoption is not allowed by Islamic law. My religious beliefs would therefore prevent me from giving my consent even if I thought that adoption was best for S which I do not.”
She believes that if a child is adopted then when he dies his soul will not get peace. She believes that if S is adopted, not merely will he lose his inheritance rights to certain family land in Pakistan but that she, in consequence, will not be able to go on Haj. She recognises that the Quran permits Kafala, which she describes as being very much like foster care, but says that Kafala is very different from adoption, as the child keeps the surname and inheritance rights of the biological family. She says that the Quran does not permit the full separation of a child from the family as happens with adoption.
[Haj is the pilgrimage to Mecca, which all followers of Muslim have to make once in a life-time. It is a core part of the faith. If the mother had not already undertaken Haj, and would be forbidden from doing so if her son was adopted, this would be very significant for her faith. But then, blood transfusion is forbidden by the Jehovah’s Witness faith, and that has never cut any ice with the High Court. And of course, the Courts have been ready to reject faith-based arguments from Christians about all sorts of things over the last few years]
Mr Justice Munby (as he then was) analysed some material and documents that explored the religious implications of adoption for those of the Islamic faith, concluding this:-
46. In broad outline all this material is to much the same effect. There is no adoption in our sense of the word in Islam, but Kafala is well established in Islam as a means of providing care to children, allowing a child to benefit from the care of a good home whilst at the same time losing neither his family name nor his rights in his birth family. Kafala is best understood as the long-term fostering of a child without the right to kinship. Under Kafala the “adoptive” family never takes the place of the biological family, whose ties to the child are never severed; the “adoptive” family are trustees and caretakers of someone else’s child. The Quran (33:4-5) specifically reminds “adoptive” parents that they are not the child’s biological parents:
“Nor has He made your adopted sons your (biological) sons. These are but (figures of) speech uttered by your mouths …
Call them by their father’s names; this is more equitable in the sight of Allah. But if you know not who their fathers were (call them) your brothers in faith and your friends”.
The Judge in Newcastle v Z accepted that these were the mother’s genuine faith-based beliefs about adoption and that they were a genuine part of Islamic faith.
48. As I read him, the expert in the case before Charles J treated adoption as something not recognised by the Sharia and also, it would seem, as something prohibited by the Sharia, in the sense that the natural rights which a parent has in relation to his or her child do not include the right to agree to adoption. But there is nothing in any of the materials I have been shown to suggest that to give up a child for adoption constitutes a wrong or a sin exposing the parent to penalty or punishment. The only reference to sin in this context that I have been shown is in the Quran (2:233) where the following appears:
“And if you both (parents) decide, by mutual consent and counsel, upon separation, you will incur no sin if you decide to entrust your children to foster-mothers, you will incur no sin provided you ensure in a fair manner, the safety of the child which you are handing over.”
49. That said, this case is not to be determined by reference to some abstract principle of Islam but having regard to the mother’s own religious and other beliefs. The fact is – and I so find – that the mother believes (and believes that in so believing she is a good Muslim) that if S is adopted then when he dies his soul will not get peace, and she likewise believes that if he is adopted she will not be able to go on Haj. Those beliefs may or may not be borne out by the Quran and the Sharia, but they are the mother’s beliefs. And they are also, I am prepared to accept, beliefs that can conscientiously be held by a devout Muslim as the mother believes herself to be.
Nonetheless, the Judge in Newcastle v Z still went on to rule that the mother was ‘unreasonably withholding her consent’. This bit of the judgment may call to mind angels dancing on the head of a pin, as the Judge rules that she is ‘reasonable’ but ‘unreasonable’ at the same time, but this was the nonsense of the 1976 Adoption Act, where the need to rule that a parent was behaving ‘unreasonably’ in objecting to non-consensual adoption led to a great many hearings where salt was rubbed into wounds.
51. The mother’s religious beliefs are in themselves reasonable – that I entirely accept – but she is nonetheless, in all the circumstances of this particular case, acting unreasonably in relying upon them as a justification for refusing consent to her son’s adoption. The mother’s religious views demand respect and call for particular and sensitive consideration, but at the end of the day the question is whether, having regard to the evidence and applying the current values of our society, the advantages of adoption for the welfare of S are sufficiently strong to justify overriding the religious and other views and interests of the mother. In my judgment they are. A reasonable parent in the mother’s position, even one holding the mother’s particular religious views, would nonetheless accept that adoption is in the best interests of her English son. The mother, in my judgment, is acting unreasonably in taking the other view.
We now don’t have the ‘unreasonably withholding her consent’ test, as the test for finally making a Placement Order is that either the parent consents, or the Court decides that the child’s welfare REQUIRES that consent be dispensed with.
It is that little word ‘REQUIRES’, which some years ago the previous President said was a ‘common sense English word’ (Re P) and has now been developed post Baroness Hale’s minority (but hugely influential) judgment in Re B, into the ‘nothing else will do’ principle; carrying on its back all of the proportionality concepts.
As outlined in Re B-S (see about one blog post in four from the last twelve months, and if you have not so far heard of Re B-S, then you’ve got quite a bit of reading to catch up on. Have you just been in Court with His Honour Judge Wildblood QC, by any chance?), the Court has to avoid a linear approach and to look at the pros and cons of each placement option. The Court can’t simply rule out a parent based on the negatives and then go to adoption as being what is left; the negatives of adoption and the positives of placement with a parent have to be taken into the mix. The faith implications surely have to go into that balancing exercise, rather than as the Judge did in Newcastle acknowledge that they existed but that they played no real part in any actual decision.
So, the question is, post Re B-S, is the approach of Newcastle v Z still good law?
It would have to be the case that the parent’s genuinely held religious beliefs about adoption would have to go into the negatives column on the option of adoption. They probably (?) don’t, of themselves defeat adoption as a possibility, because if so adoption would just be ruled out for any child of Muslim parents. One can readily see that being abused by people as a ‘get out of adoption free card’ by converting at the doors of Court.
So, Newcastle stands up on it not being determinative, but I suspect that in a finely balanced case, it might be a very important factor.
That raises some questions of its own – if the incorporation of that factor is capable of tipping the balance in a finely balanced case, then children of Muslim parents are potentially being treated differently to those of non-Muslim parents. Possibly a case could involve two half-siblings, one half-Muslim and one non-Muslim. Are those children in the SAME case to be treated to different standards? What about a case where the parents are not Muslim, but the grandparents are? What about if only one of the grandparents is Muslim? Where do you stop? Where the child is 1/8th Muslim? 1/16th ? How devout do the parents have to be? Is it intrusive and offensive to even enquire about that?
In the Milton Keynes case, the Judge was taken to the Islamic beliefs about adoption (they are similar to those expressed in Newcastle, but there are some interesting additions – for example that the central figure in Islam had himself adopted a child)
The children here had a Muslim mother and a non-Muslim father
102. I am concerned that one form of long term placement that has not been realistically explored by the Local Authority, or by the Guardian, appears to be Special Guardianship, which the Guardian considers only in the context of a family member being appointed as special guardian and the Local Authority considers not at all. This case, I recall, concerns two boys who are Muslim; and X in particular is taking a serious interest in his Muslim heritage.
103. The author “Huda” writing on the website Islam.about.com expresses the matter in this way:
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) once said that a person who cares for an orphaned child will be in Paradise with him, and motioned to show that they would be as close as two fingers of a single hand. An orphan himself, Muhammad paid special attention to the care of children. He himself adopted a former slave and raised him with the same care as if he were his own son.
However, the Qur’an gives specific rules about the legal relationship between a child and his/her adoptive family. The child’s biological family is never hidden; their ties to the child are never severed. The Qur’an specifically reminds adoptive parents that they are not the child’s biological parents:
“…Nor has He made your adopted sons your (biological) sons. Such is (only) your (manner of) speech by your mouths. But Allah tells (you) the Truth, and He shows the (right) Way. Call them by (the names of) their fathers; that is juster in the sight of Allah. .”
(Qur’an 33)
Of course, in English law, an adoption order has the effect of making the adopted child, for all purposes the child of the adopters. There undoubtedly are observant Muslims who are prepared to accept the idea of adoption, in the same way that there are undoubtedly Roman Catholics who accept the laws of divorce. But it must plainly be right to respect the view of any devout Muslim, who says in the face of that teaching contained in the Qur’an that adoption as understood in English law is unacceptable.
The Judge in Milton Keynes referred to the philosophy underpinning Special Guardianship Orders, which in part were a solution for the faith-based difficulties with adoption. She quoted the White Paper
5.8 Adoption is not always appropriate for children who cannot return to their birth parents. Some older children do not wish to be legally separated from their birth families. Adoption may not be best for some children being cared for on a permanent basis by members of their wider birth family. Some minority ethnic communities have religious and cultural difficulties with adoption as it is set out in law. Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children may also need secure, permanent homes, but have strong attachments to their families abroad. All these children deserve the same chance as any other to enjoy the benefits of a legally secure, stable permanent placement that promotes a supportive, lifelong relationship with their carers, where the court decides that is in their best interests.
5.9 In order to meet the needs of these children where adoption is not appropriate, and to modernise the law so as to reflect the religious and cultural diversity of our country today, the Government believes there is a case to develop a new legislative option to provide permanence short of the legal separation involved in adoption. This view was strongly supported by respondents to the consultation on the PFU report.
This is, frankly, a bloody good point. Part of the rationale for introducing Special Guardianship Orders were that there are sections of the UK population that have a faith-based objection to adoption as it is practised in the UK. Surely if that’s the case, then it ought to be considered as a solution in such cases?
The Local Authority in this case were saying that there simply isn’t a pool of ‘prospective Special Guardians’ in the same way that there is a pool of foster carers or prospective adopters. Special Guardianship really only represented a solution for children who needed permanent homes outside of the family if there were existing people in the children’s lives (wider family or foster carers) who would be suitable and willing to have a Special Guardianship Order. You can’t HUNT for Special Guardians, you can only find a person who is able to care for the child and then ask them whether Special Guardianship is something they would want to do.
(In short, the Court can’t make Special Guardianship Orders generically and ask the Local Authority to find the right people at a later stage, it can only look at the right people and decide if a Special Guardianship Order was the right order)
The Judge wasn’t taken with that argument
it appears to me to be entirely unacceptable, and to put the cart before the horse, for a public authority to say “We haven’t got in place mechanisms to implement a measure provided by Parliament, and therefore we do not even propose to try”.
The solution that the Judge favoured was that the current foster carers be approached, with a view to permanently caring for these children under a Special Guardianship Order. It makes perfect sense to me for this enquiry to be made (and frankly, one would expect that it HAD been made prior to the final hearing)
I would invite the Local Authority to give careful consideration to the matter, and to whether it would not be more appropriate to regard long term placement with the existing foster parents as the outcome which would best meet the boys’ needs if permanency in it can be achieved.
I would ask the Local Authority specifically to amend their care plans to clarify timescales and the criteria on which they would seek to move the boys from their existing placement, and to make it explicit that the boys will not be separated from one another and will not be accommodated in short term placements
In a more general sense, there’s another time at which the Court might be weighing up Special Guardianship v adoption; and that is in a case where the parents are seeking leave to oppose the making of an adoption order.
The High Court dealt with that earlier this year in Re N (A child) Adoption Order 2014 (see this post https://suesspiciousminds.com/2014/05/10/special-guardianship-versus-adoption/ )
There are some key strands to be drawn together then
- In seeking leave to oppose adoption, Re B-S says that when measuring whether a parent’s application has ‘solidity’, one is not looking at just whether they would get the child back, but whether they could persuade the Court to make another order.
- The Court can impose a Special Guardianship Order on a person who doesn’t want one – there is clear Court of Appeal authority from the very first batch of Special Guardianship cases (Re S) that the Court could look at someone who had applied for adoption and make a Special Guardianship Order instead
- The Courts accept that there is a genuine faith-based objection in the Islamic faith to adoption as it is practiced in the UK
- Part of the rationale behind Special Guardianship was to resolve that faith-based objection
- From Re N, the High Court have set down a marker that it was due to ‘exceptional circumstances’ that they did not acquiesce to father’s request that the Court make an SGO as an alternative to adoption.
“I have already indicated that this is an exceptional case. If it were not an exceptional case, I doubt whether an adoption order would have been appropriate”
It would seem to me, and I am no expert, just an opinionated law Geek, that the door to successfully challenge an adoption application on religious grounds and substitute it for a Special Guardianship Order is at the very least ajar, if not coming off its hinges.
Do Local Authorities, Guardians and Courts have to bear that in mind when considering making the Placement Orders in the first place? Do adopters who are considering taking on children with Muslim parents need to be advised that this placement might be susceptible to a successful challenge? Is there a need for a national recruitment and register for people willing to care for Muslim children for life under SGOs?
In the words of Chandler Bing – “Can open. Worms. Everywhere”
suesspiciousminds 