The illiberal pattern is familiar, as ministers plan to change the rules and block avenues of resistance for parents who disagree

A deep, sometimes toxic contradiction has long sat at the heart of Conservative politics, and thanks to Boris Johnson’s government it is now more visible than ever.

Brexit has replaced frictionless trade with Europe with a nightmare of form-filling, surcharges and red tape. The benefits system is seemingly designed to be a bureaucratic mess of inexplicable rules and regulations, so impossible to navigate that people are thereby incentivised to stay well away from it. Getting to see a doctor or dentist now feels much the same. And there is another, rather more overlooked example of how the promise of choice and a responsive state is all too often nullified by its exact opposite, which is about to become even more glaring: England’s system of provision for children and young people with special educational needs.

Just under 1.5 million kids in England fall into this category. Around 470,000 of them currently have what officialspeak terms an education, health and care plan (EHCP). This legally binding document, which sets out the provision a child or young person needs, can now run up to the age of 25, and offers families at least some certainty about what they’re entitled to and who delivers it. As I know as a matter of experience – my 15-year-old son is autistic, and has an EHCP – it often takes a mind-bending level of effort to get one. But since 2010, when EHCP-like documents were known as statements of special educational needs, national figures for the number of people who have one has increased every year. Indeed, at the last count, the number of plans was up nearly 10% year-on-year, and initial requests for one had increased by nearly a quarter.

The system built around EHCPs allows parents to appeal against local authority decisions via the Send (or special educational needs and disabilities) tribunal system – very often, people contest refusals to allow them to even begin the process of acquiring a plan, or push to get their child the kind of specialist schooling often delivered by independent providers. Again, the relevant figures are on the up: over the past eight years, the number of appeals has more than doubled. Some of this is traceable to parents being able to access information and advice via online communities centred on such websites as the brilliant Special Needs Jungle, and being empowered as never before. Current statistics, moreover, suggest that nine out of 10 appeals are decided in favour of families and against councils.

Profiles of children up for adoption cannot be shared because of privacy issues, the Foundation for Social Welfare Services CEO Alfred Grixti, told The Malta Independent on Sunday.

“As an entity entrusted by the State with the responsibility of being the guardians of these children, we cannot share their profiles because of GDPR issues,” Grixti said. Nothing can stop these children, when they became adults, from suing the State if their personal information is shared without their consent, he added.

Grixti, together with the director for Alternative Care, Remenda Grech, were speaking to this newspaper after last week, Josette Sultana, a founder of Adoption Opportunities, said that one of the reasons why the country has a very low rate of adoptions of Maltese children is because there is a lack of sharing of their profiles.

Only 27 Maltese children have been adopted by Maltese families in the last decade.

Grixti began by clarifying that adoptions are no longer the responsibility of A?enzija Appo??, as indicated by Sultana. This is now the remit of the Directorate for Alternative Care (Children and Youths) which was set up in July 2020 through the introduction of the Minor Protection (Alternative Care) Act. The Directorate is now the responsible entity for minors in alternative care, foster care and adoptions, among others.

When it comes to law there is one very important term that has comes up that is public interest litigation. The name behind introducing this concept is Justice P.N Bhagwat i.e. Prafulla Chandra Natwarlal Bhagwat. Honorable justice was the 17th chief justice of India whispered our country from 12th July 1885 until his retirement on 20th December 1986. As I have mentioned above, he has come up with 2 concept that is public interest legislation & absolute liability in India he was the 1st person to introduce us with this concept when we speak about public interest litigations on it means that through law or with the help of court of law there would be protection that would be given to public in a great extend such as pollutions, terrorism and road safety and when it comes to second concept that’s justice P.N Bhagwat introduce it was absolute liability it means if a person is made liable without any excuse or considering the nature of ondol that is called absolute liability. He is also one of the longest second supreme court judges including the chief justice to the tenure in our country India.

When we came to Justice P.N Bhagwat’s personal and early life we came to know that honorable Justice was born in Gujarat and his father named Justice Natwarlal H. Bhagwat was also a Supreme Court Judge and when we came to his sibling, he had an elder brother named Jagdish Bhagwat who was an economist and also the neurosurgeon in Mumbai. Honorable justice studied in one of the named collages that is Elphinstone collage by pursuing mathematics(honors). Honorable justice took his degree from Bombay university in 1941. In 1942, he was being arrested for participating in UP gang Indian independence MDUT and he also went underground for 4months.

He later received a law degree from law university after completed his law degree in government law collage Bombay. After his education was done, he was married to Prabhavati and he had 3 daughters namely Pallavi, Parul and Sonali. At present Pallavi Bhagwat is managing partner of leading Indian law firm. Justice Bhagwat was a devotee of the popular Indian guru Sathya Sai baba and he was also the member of their community or trust which was known as Sathya Sai Baba trust and justice Bhagwat was the member of that trust until he was dead. When we come towards one of the very important things of every person that is the carrier and even, he was one of the named judges of Gujarat and also gave many important judgements when it comes to his law carrier.

Justice Bhagwat has begun practicing in Bombay high court as an advocate. When it comes to 1960 Justice Bhagwat was appointed as the judge Gujarat high court. In September 1967 in justice P.N Bhagwat was appointed as the chief justice of Gujarat high court and even on the very important position of a state was handled by him it may be for temporary duration and that to he got this opportunity of becoming governor for occasion that is from 7th December 1967 to 25th December 1973 and the 2nd time duration started from 17 march 1973 to 3rd April 1973 even by July 1973 justice was appointed as a judge of supreme court of India and august 1985 he was chief justice of India justice was appointed by Giani Zali Singh and on 12th July 1983 honorable justice joined as 17th chief justice of India and honorable justice was proceeded by Y.V Chandra Chand and succeeded by R.S Pathak . India’s second highest civilian award that is Padma Vibhushan for his public affair honorable justice was awarded with Padma Vibhushan in 2007. Some of the important judgement that was being heard or honorable justice P.N Bhagwat was a part were Harbor campus case controversy.

One of the controversial judgements given by honorable justice Bhagwat was In ADM sulab pur V. shivkant case which was popularly refined as ADM Jabalpur case or habeas campus case in this case it was stated that during emergency the fundaments rights which are provided to us they would be suspended and this judgement receive a lot of criticism because it has reduced all the important attached to fundamental rights which are mention through Indian constitution. the bench who gave the decision even honorable justice Bhagwat was a part of it and they concluded the decision in favor of Indira Gandhi government but when Janta party came up again honorable justice Bhagwat change the decision and when Indira Gandhi in 1980 came they gave decision in their favor Bhagwat was criticized for his change of standards and favoring the change of stands

Five 'metis women' - all children of Congolese mothers and Belgian fathers - are appealing a ruling by the Brussels civil court that the Belgian state is not guilty of crimes against humanity.

The civil court of Brussels acquitted the Belgian state in December in the trial of the metis children. Five women had charged Belgium with crimes against humanity. Between 1948 and 1961, numerous metis were kidnapped by colonial officials. They often forced the mothers to say goodbye to their child and the children were placed in orphanages or missions. According to the judge, it is not about crimes against humanity, and the case is also time-barred.

The five women are appealing the ruling. The case has been brought before the Brussels Court of Appeal. A calendar has yet to be established later.

The case also interests the special committee that investigates the Belgian colonial past in the House. One of the lawyers of the five metis children, Michèle Hirsch, will be heard on Monday in the Commission, which has meanwhile started work on rectifying the mistakes of the colonial period. She pleaded for reparations in court in December.

In 2018, Charles Michel, as Prime Minister, on behalf of the Belgian state, apologized to the metis children of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi.

The shine of life has been gone since January 2020 with Henk Hoft and his wife. In that month, their three grandchildren were removed from their mother and her then boyfriend by order of the juvenile court and placed with foster families. Grandpa Henk has hardly seen them since. They were together once in the past two and a half years. That was when his wife was in the hospital.

Sitting on a bench in the outskirts of his hometown Lemelerveld, Henk tells his side of the story. A series of events is reviewed. The night he had to spend in jail after the threat was reported by Overijssel Youth Protection. That he contacted his grandson several times without permission from the authorities. And his unvarnished opinion on youth care and the National Expertise Team for Youth Protection. "That's mafia, scum. They are the real criminals. They just take the kids away from us."

The out-of-home placement

"It was chaos, that particular day in January 2020. It started with a phone call from our daughter. She asked if the children could stay with us for a while. No problem, of course that was possible. We have enough time and space. My daughter lived then for a while already eleven high in a small flat in Zwolle. I had often said that that was not a good place for the children to grow up."

poster

Adoption is an act that commits the future of the child, his adoptive family and his birth family. This commitment requires more than good intentions. It must be carefully considered by everyone. Adoption arouses feelings, emotions in perpetual evolution, which deserve to be devoted to them a space of listening and reflection.

Our service ONE Adoption is an organization approved by the Wallonia-Brussels Federation for internal adoption – that is to say the adoption of children who were born or reside in French-speaking Belgium.

ONE Adoption fulfills a support mission in several areas concerning adoption:

support for mothers or birth parents in their reflection and their plan to put their child up for adoption;

support for children placed with a view to their adoption, at the request of the birth parents or the Youth Aid authorities;

In 2020 the European Commission put forward a proposal to “ensure that parenthood, as established in one EU country, is recognized throughout the EU so that children maintain their rights in cross-border situations, in particular when their families travel or move within the EU.” When the Commission consulted associations and citizens, it stated that the initiative is not intended to harmonize national legislation for establishing parenthood.

Indeed, each Member State has national competence for establishing filiation. However, a recent decision of the European Court of Justice appears to circumvent Member State legislation, under the guise of freedom of movement within the EU, without blatantly requiring the Member States to establish filiation that it has no intention of recognizing.

This judgment concerns a case where two women got married under Spanish law – one Bulgarian and the other a resident of Gibraltar – and a child born in Spain, the country that issued the birth certificate registering both of them as mothers. According to Spanish law, a child cannot be issued Spanish nationality if neither of the parents is Spanish. On the other hand, Bulgarian law grants de facto Bulgarian citizenship if one of the parents has Bulgarian nationality. However, Bulgaria does not recognize same-sex marriages, therefore its administration could not issue the birth certificate. Hence the resulting imbroglio for establishing identity documents for the child. In its decision, the European Court ordered the Bulgarian authorities “to issue a Bulgarian identity card or passport, listing the child’s surname as indicated on the Spanish birth certificate, regardless of the dispute over establishing a new birth certificate”. The Court has declared that such a document, on its’ own or together with a document issued by the host Member State, must ensure “the child’s right to free movement, with each of his two mothers, whose status as parents of that child has been established by the host Member State”, (referring to the Directive https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2004:229:0035:0048:fr:PDF on the right of EU citizens and their family members to move and reside freely throughout the territory).

Currently, since Member States retain national authority for establishing filiation, it is crucial that these disputes be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

Alliance VITA issued a recommendation, as an answer to the consultation of the European Commission, to warn against systematically recognizing filiations within the EU while maintaining the principle of subsidiarity for Member States in this matter. Such practices could put children in increasing jeopardy due to the acceleration in the reproductive business and the risk of human trafficking.

The life story of Eva Yoo Ri Brussaard, a Korean adoptee in the Netherlands, is heartbreaking, yet it is sadly familiar.

At age 2, she was abandoned by her biological father and was sent oversea with her blind sister to be adopted by a Dutch couple. The couple got divorced only three years later, her sister was sent to an orphanage, and she stayed with the Dutch mother, only to live in neglect.

“I always dreamt about my (birth) parents and thought that I could have a better life in Korea,” said Brussaard.

Like many adoptees did, she grew up with a feeling of being abandoned. “You feel insecure. You don’t feel connected to the world in some ways,” she said.

Now 42, Brussaard is in Seoul preparing for a legal fight to be recognized as the daughter of her birth father.

Bill entitled an Act to make further and better provision in respect of access by certain persons to information concerning their origins and, for that purpose, to provide for the access by adopted persons and persons who have been the subject of incorrect birth registrations or certain care arrangements to their birth certificates and other information and items relating to them; to provide, where such persons are deceased, for the access in certain circumstances by their children or other next of kin to such information or items; to provide for the making available, by the Adoption Authority of Ireland and the Child and Family Agency, of a service for the tracing of certain persons; to provide for the establishment and maintenance of a register to be known as the Contact Preference Register; to provide for the safeguarding and transfer to the Adoption Authority of Ireland of certain records relating to the birth, adoption and care of certain persons; to amend the Succession Act 1965 to make provision in respect of persons who have been the subject of incorrect birth registrations; to amend the Civil Registration Act 2004 to make additional provision in respect of persons who are the subject of incorrect birth registrations; to amend the National Archives Act 1986; to amend the Adoption Act 2010; and to provide for related matters.

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On July 1st, 2022, the project of the German Institute for Home Education Research gGmbH/An-Institute of the Evangelische Hochschule Berlin (DIH) to research politically motivated forced adoptions in the GDR will start. The BMI is providing around 1 million euros for the duration of the project (3 years). With the start of the funding project on July 1, 2022, the BMI is implementing the decision of the German Bundestag ( application Bundestags-Drucksache 19/11091 ). The research team is interdisciplinary and consists of social ethicists, educationalists, lawyers, psychologists and medical historians from various universities and institutes.

The selected research project will include:

explore the importance, scope and historical dimension of politically motivated adoption processes;

review the circumstances of the forced adoption;

rediscuss the various definitions of forced adoption and check them against new sources;