영국 2002년 입양 및 아동법 (Adoption and Children Act 2002)에 관한 소고

The adoption and Children Act 2002 in England aims to increase adoption rates and produce a more co-ordinated approach to adoption. The court and adoption agency may be required to play a greater role in supervising the position of children in care than they have done to date. The main contents of the Act are as follows. First, the Act aligns adoption law with the relevant provisions of the Children Act 1989 to ensure that the child’s welfare is the paramount consideration in all decisions relating to adoption. The Act makes the welfare of the child the paramount consideration for courts and adoption agencies in all decisions relating to adoption, including in deciding whether to dispense with a birth parent’s consent to adoption. Second, the Act makes provision for the process of adoption and the conditions for the making of adoption orders, including new measures for placement for adoption with consent and placement orders to replace the existing provisions in the Adoption Act 1976 for freeing orders. The intention is to ensure that decisions about whether adoption is the right option for the child, whether the birth parents consent and, if not, whether parental consent should be dispensed with are taken earlier in the adoption process than at present, with court involvement where necessary. After placement for adoption, the Act sets out the period a child must live with the applicants before they can apply for an adoption order. Third, the Act explains the effect of an adoption order. It’s important to note that the Act provides for adoption orders to be made in favour of single people, married couples and unmarried couples. Lastly, The Act amends the Children Act 1989 to introduce a new special guardianship order, intended to provide permanence for children for whom adoption is not appropriate. Although our adoption law cannot be denied that it has made great progress through the full revision of the Adoption Special Law in 2011 and the partial revision of the Civil Law in 2012, there is still a need for an overall review of the adoption law. In this respect, I hope this paper will serve as a reference for the more desirable development of our adoption legislation in the future.