I have previously written about an application made by an adoptive mother (my client) to revoke adoption orders. We started off in the High Court, went to the Court of Appeal, and, finally, the case was heard by The Supreme Court in February this year. The Judgment was handed down today, 22 April 2026.
Spoiler alert – the Supreme Court has provided a very clear decision that validly made adoption orders cannot be revoked.
“The only gateway out of a legal parent-child relationship is adoption.” [33]
Because this case was heard in the Supreme Court there is a lot of information available, including the anonymised legal arguments of each party, on the Supreme Court website – however, it is still a case about a particular family and that family cannot be named, or identified, and it is essential that their privacy is respected.
Our application was based on the argument that the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court (which the Supreme Court refers to as the parens patriae jurisdiction – the ‘parent of the nation’ prerogative that originally belonged to the Crown) could be used to revoke an adoption order because the statutory scheme (the Adoption and Children Act 2002) did not deal with it. The Supreme Court did not agree:
“The exercise of the parens patriae powers to circumvent the statutory scheme would mean that the court would be exercising a residual general power, entirely outside any statutory scheme, to revoke an order that has been lawfully made and which the statutory scheme put in place by Parliament intends to be permanent and irrevocable (save only in the case of legitimation). This would be an impermissible attempt to side-step the clear scheme of the ACA 2002.” [71]
In our case the adoptive mother’s application was supported by the birth (or natural) mother and one of the children. At various times the other child also supported the application. The court recognised:
“The breakdown of the adoption in this case was not a consequence of AM rejecting either X or Y. AM’s motivation has been to support them and give effect to their wishes and feelings.” [8]
We had four interveners: The Secretary of State for Education, The Association of Lawyers for Children, CoramBAAF, and The International Centre for Family Law, Policy and Practice (the ICFLPP). All of the interveners opposed the appeal. The Court accepted the argument that adopted children should be in the same position as natural children – there is no ‘undoing’ of the legal relationship (other than by adoption).
“The only measure precluded by the legislation is the ability for a natural or adoptive parent or child to extinguish the legal parent-child relationship, other than by way of adoption. This places adoptive parents and their children in the same position as natural parents and their children.” [70]
“However, even though there may be welfare grounds for doing so, we have no sense of regret in holding that there is no inherent power to revoke an adoption order. First, the court has numerous carefully calibrated powers which are available to protect children, including making a further adoption order in respect of a child who has already been adopted. That power could have been used in this case. Second, the position of an adopted child is no different from the position of a child born to their natural parents. In relation to a child born to their natural parents there is no power to revoke parenthood, except by making an adoption order.” [128]
The Court of Appeal had left open a tiny gap by saying “there may nevertheless be very narrow and specific instances in which the High Court finds it necessary to entertain an application to revoke an adoption order, but they will only arise where for some reason an appeal, in or out of time, is not possible”. [63 CoA] However, The Supreme Court firmly closes that gap:
“The point can be tested in this way: imagine a natural child who is so gravely upset with their natural parents that their self-identity is compromised in a way that leads to self-harm or other issues arising under articles 2, 3 or 8 of the Convention; there would be no scope for a court to intervene in such a case by changing or revoking the natural parents’ parental responsibility….. Why should it be any different in the case of an adopted child?” [134]
The conclusion, that there is no inherent jurisdiction that allows revocation, is summarised in para 73 of the Judgment:
“For these reasons, the court has no parens patriae powers that can be exercised to revoke a valid adoption order to extinguish and then transfer parental responsibility outside the statutory scheme in the ACA 2002.” [73]
The impact of this decision is to send the very clear message that adoption is permanent.
There will be two opposing views about this. On the one hand I think the majority of adopters, prospective adopters and adoption agencies will find the outcome reassuring; on the other hand there is a growing feeling amongst a minority that the permanent nature of the order does not reflect the realities of modern adoption – that children are likely to come to know their birth families, some may have direct contact throughout their lives, and some may return to them.
So, what can adoptees and their families do if they find themselves in the situation that my client and her family found themselves in? The only solution now available to them, if they wish to re-establish the legal relationship between child and birth family, is for the birth parent to apply to adopt the children.
Emily Boardman
Boardman, Hawkins & Osborne LLP