Adoption legislation changes dismissed

A legal bid to overturn legislation banning unmarried couples from adopting has been dismissed by a judge in Northern Ireland’s Court of Appeal.

The couple launched the case concerning a 10-year-old girl referred to as P as the partner of her mother was not able to adopt her, because they were not married.

The mother and her partner are referred to as X and Y, throughout the case, and have lived together before P was born.

Under current Northern Ireland laws couples who are not married are not permitted to adopt a child. In 2002 in England and Wales the same restriction was lifted for unmarried couples.

The couple argued the right to respect family life, as laid down in article Eight of the European Convention of Human Rights and also claimed they were victims of discrimination.

Lord Chief Justice Brian Kerr, however rejected the appeal and said they had failed to distinguish cohabiting couples as a definable group as well as failing to highlight sufficient comparisons between married and unmarried couples.

The Lord Chief Justice said: “The somewhat formless nature of the group comprising unmarried, cohabiting couples makes it difficult to recognise it as possessing a distinct personal characteristic.”

He added the couple “have not sought to compare themselves with married couples on the basis of belonging to a more narrowly defined group,” and they “can opt to become eligible as adoptive parents by getting married.”

(JM/SP)