“....once the adopting order is made it will be final and binding during the life time of the child, and the child shall have a right to inherit their property. The applicants shall not be able to give up the child owing to any subsequent unforeseen behaviour or other changes in the child,” Justice Aggrey Muchelule who heads the Judiciary’s Family Division, ruled recently.
The new parents, who are expected to take care of the adopted children as their own, are also expected to assume parental rights and duties immediately the court allows them to adopt them.
The rights include changing their names by adding the adoption parents’ surname and the court adoption order is entered in the register by the registrar General.
The Director of Immigration is also authorised by the court to issue the child with a passport.
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The judge made the decision in a case in which a couple who had lived 13 years without a child applied to be allowed to adopt a baby.
The baby had been given up for adoption at a children’s home by his mother after he was born at Nyeri Provincial Hospital.
The matter was reported to the police and the baby formally committed to the home by the magistrate’s court in Nairobi. The home is said to have made efforts to trace the mother in vain but managed to get consent from the minor’s grandmother.
Child’s best interest
The home declared the child for adoption three years later and the couple took him in before getting their own baby.
A report presented in court by a person it had appointed to study the couple’s home showed they were financially and emotionally able to raise the baby.
In another case, the court allowed a single woman to adopt a baby who was found abandoned in Nairobi’s Komarok area in 2012.
A report from Kayole Police Station dated October 8, 2015 showed the baby’s biological parents could not be traced and on December 9, 2015, the baby was placed in the care of the woman aged 58 before being declared free for adoption.
The Director of Children’s Services is said to have visited the home and established that the woman was able to take care of the baby. A report on reasons why the child stands to gain if adopted by the woman was also tabled in court.
“The child was in court during the hearing and appeared to have bonded well with the applicant. She was jovial and clearly seemed to trust the applicant. She regarded her as her parent. The applicant’s family members are aware of the proposed adoption and support it,” said Judge Lydiah Achode who handled the case.
In Kericho County, Lady Justice Mumbi Ngugi allowed a couple to adopt a baby abandoned at a tea estate in 2013.
The baby had been committed by the Kericho magistrate’s court to the care of a centre operated by a church in Nakuru and freed for adoption in 2015 before being put in the couple’s care and custody.
