New Zealand: Adoption Law Reform Required

Adoption in New Zealand is regulated by the Adoption Act 1955 which is now 51 years old. Amendments have since been made in respect of access to adoption information and intercountry adoption but there have been only minor amendments to the Adoption Act despite a number of reviews and calls for major reform. The Law Commission in its 2000 report Adoption and its Alternatives provides an excellent blueprint for adoption reform and places strong emphasis of the rights and interests of children. ACYA in its NGO report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child pressed the need for major reform of adoption laws to bring it into compliance with UNCROC.

Problems with the Adoption Act include:

• The Act contains no reference to the child's rights - its focus is predominantly on the two sets of parents
• The consent of the child is not necessary before an adoption order is made even where the child is aged 16 or 17 years and is married
• The names of a child of any age can be changed by an adoption order
• The welfare and interests of the child are not the paramount consideration in adoption (as required by the Convention on the Rights of the Child). They are relevant only as one of the matters to be taken into consideration when an interim adoption order is made.
• The child has no power to appeal against an adoption order
• There is a risk that children can be adopted in Russia and brought to New Zealand for the purposes of sexual exploitation or prostitution
• New Zealand's adoption laws have been criticised by the Law Commission, the Human Rights Commission and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. They do not fully comply with the Hague Convention on intercountry adoption.

   

A group of people with a special interest in adoption met with the Minister of Justice on the 11th May 2006 and urged the Minister to put work reform on the Ministry's work programme for 2006-07. The Minister said that he was currently setting work priorities for the Department for the year 2006/07 and that he was conscious of defects in the current legislation. He promised to let the delegation know whether adoption reform had been included on the work programme for the year commencing 1 July 2006.

The delegation provided the Minister with a briefing paper setting out the reasons why urgent reform was necessary. This paper is on our website. Anyone interested in keeping in touch with developments in this area should contact Robert Ludbrook at [email protected]