Special Guardianship After Re S, Re AJ and Re M-J

Abigail Bond Barrister St Johns Chambers Bristol. The placement of children with other members of their family such as grandparents or aunts and uncles can deliver with it complications and considerations which would not apply in cases where they are placed with someone unrelated. Adoption of a child by its grandparents for example has the effect of making the child a sibling of one of its birth parents with the additional possibility of the child's identity being concealed or misrepresented and the risk of the child becoming confused.

Special guardianship orders created by the Adoption and Children Act 2002 and effective as of 30 December 2005 looked like a way forward in these sorts of family placement cases. However in the recent cases of Re S (Special Guardianship Order) [2007] EWCA Civ 54 [2007] FLR (forthcoming); Re AJ (Special Guardianship Order) [2007] EWCA Civ 55 [2007] FLR (forthcoming); Re M-J (Special Guardianship Order) [2007] EWCA Civ 56 [2007] FLR (forthcoming) the Court of Appeal made it clear that a special guardianship order in these circumstances was not automatically the right way forward. Each case falls to...

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