The Hague District Court - Revocation of adoption / deletion / correction / addition of a birth certificate

ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2023:21681

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AgencyThe Hague District Court

Date of pronouncement14-12-2023

Date of publication12-02-2024

Case numberC/09/636680 / FA RK 22-6930

Areas of lawPersonal and family law

Special featuresOrder

Content indication

Revocation of adoption / deletion / correction / addition of a birth certificate

Following a decision to revoke an adoption pronounced under Dutch law, it was decided to revoke the requests for judicial determination of the parentage of the applicant's mother, to revoke the adoption pronounced in Ethiopia, to declare that the applicant has the surname she obtained in Ethiopia, to improve/supplement the applicant's birth certificate and to change the applicant's first names. Due to the complexity of the case, the Single Chamber referred the case to a Multiple Chamber. The requests for judicial determination of the parentage of the applicant's mother and to revoke the adoption pronounced in Ethiopia were withdrawn by the applicant. Where the applicant primarily requested that her birth certificate be cancelled, that request was rejected because that certificate does not appear in the register of the registrar of births, marriages and deaths without good reason. Furthermore, cancellation of that certificate would lead to the lapse of the historical data included in the certificate, which does not do justice to the situation that these facts have had legal consequences and still do in some respects. The correction of the surname and date of birth in the applicant's birth certificate has been ordered, as well as the addition of the mother's details to the birth certificate. Furthermore, a change of first name has been granted.

LocationsRechtspraak.nl

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THE HAGUE District Court

Multiple room

Application number: FA RK 22-6930

Case number: C/09/636680

Date of decision: December 14, 2023

Order on April 7, 2022 at the Central Netherlands Court and subsequently on

Request received at the registry of this court on October 14, 2022 from:

[name01] ,

applicant,

residing in [place of residence01] ,

lawyer mr. EPJ Appelman in Alkmaar.

The following are considered to be interested parties:

[name02] ,

without known place of residence or abode, but residing in Ethiopia.

The following are considered to be interested parties with regard to the request to amend the birth data:

the registrar of the municipality of [place02] ,

seated at [place02] ,

the civil servant.

Procedure

By order of [order date01] 2022, the court [place01] – insofar as relevant here -:

- the adoption under Dutch law pronounced by order of the court [place01] of [order date02] 1993 of [name01] , born on [date of birth01] 1986 in [place of birth01] , Ethiopia, by [name03] and [name04] revoked, the registrar of the municipality of [place02] orders to add a later mention of the revocation of the adoption to the relevant deed;

- declared itself incompetent to hear the other requests (numbered II, III, IV and V in the application) and referred the case, in the state it was at that time, to this court.

By order of 16 June 2023, the single-member chamber of this court, taking into account the complexity and nature of the (additional) requests, also viewed in conjunction with the considerations in the aforementioned order of [order date 01] 2022, referred the case to the multi-member chamber for further proceedings.

The reason for this referral to the multi-member chamber is mainly that the court [place01] indicated in the decision of [decision date01] 2022 under consideration 4.14 that the adoption pronounced in Ethiopia had and has no legal significance in the Netherlands. This decision concludes that with the revocation of the Dutch adoption, the basis of the adoption in the birth register of the municipality

[place02] data entered will lapse and that a situation as referred to in article 1:25c paragraph 1 of the Civil Code (BW) applies. This means that the District Court of The Hague can determine the data necessary for drawing up a birth certificate.

The court has again taken note of the contents of the file, which now also includes:

• -

the F9 form of 31 October 2023 from the applicant;

• -

the F9 form of 7 November 2023 on behalf of the applicant.

The following requests are still pending:

1. determination of parentage between the applicant and Mrs.

[name02] (interested party: [name02] );

2. revocation of the adoption pronounced in Ethiopia on [date01] 1991;

3. to understand that the applicant has the surname [surname01];

4. improvement or addition to the applicant's birth certificate, in the sense that where

state “[name01] of the feminine gender” will be improved to:

“ [name01] , female, daughter of [name02]

”, and correction of the applicant's birth certificate to the effect that where it states “On [date of birth01] nineteen hundred and eighty-six” will be corrected to: “On [date of birth02] nineteen hundred and eighty-five”;

5. change of the applicant's first names from “ [firstnames01] ” to “ [firstnames02] ”.

On 16 November 2023, the hearing at the multi-member chamber of this court continued. The following were present: the applicant, assisted by her lawyer and accompanied by her partner [name05], and the civil servant in the person of [name06] and [name07]. The interested party was given the opportunity to appear at the hearing via a video connection. She did not make use of this opportunity.

The requests as mentioned above under 1. and 2. were withdrawn at the hearing of 16 November 2023. The applicant subsequently amended her requests, so that she now requests:

- primarily (1) deletion of the deed [number01] of the year 1993 appearing in the civil servant's register of births, (2) determination of her birth data pursuant to Article 1:25c of the Dutch Civil Code

subsidiary improvement of the aforementioned deed [number01] (as mentioned under 4 of the original request) and

- change of her first names from “[firstnames01]” to “[firstnames02]”.

Judgement

The court upholds everything that was considered and decided in the decisions of [decision date01] 2022 of the court [place01] and of 16 June 2023 of this court, insofar as this decision does not consider or decide otherwise. For the sake of the readability of this decision, the court repeats the following.

On [date of decision02] 1993, the District Court of [place03] pronounced the Dutch adoption of the applicant, which was registered in the civil registry of the municipality of [place02] on [date02] 1993 with the adoption deed number [number02] (hereinafter also: deed [number02]).

On [date03] 1993, the registrar in [place02] drew up a deed of registration of a foreign deed (namely the Ethiopian birth certificate of the applicant), under deed number [number01] (hereinafter also: deed [number01]). This states that [name01] was born in Ethiopia on [date of birth01] 1986. It is noted that the date of birth has been corrected to [date of birth01] 1986 in accordance with adoption deed [number02]. Also on [date03] 1993, the registrar in [place02] drew up a deed with number [number03] (hereinafter also: deed [number03]) in which the first name “ [firstnames02] ” was changed to “ [firstnames01] ”, all on the basis of the order of the court in Utrecht of [order date02] 1993. Both deed [number02] and deed [number03] are attached after deed [number01] and form part thereof.

The applicant's Dutch adoption was revoked by the court [place01] by order of [order date01] 2022. This revocation has since been recorded as a later entry on the deed [number01].

The court considers as follows.

Cancellation of the deed [number01]

Under Article 1:24, first paragraph, of the Dutch Civil Code, the court may, at the request of interested parties or the Public Prosecution Service, order the addition of a missing deed or subsequent entry to a civil status register, the deletion of a wrongly appearing deed or subsequent entry, or the correction of a deed or subsequent entry that is incomplete or contains an error.

The primary request was to strike out the deed [number01]. The applicant argued that her adoption had been arranged carelessly and that there had been a fraudulent adoption process. Two years after her arrival in the Netherlands, it turned out that the applicant's biological parents were still alive and that they had not given their consent to the adoption. It was presented as if the applicant were an orphan. The applicant's biological parents wrote to the adoptive parents from Ethiopia and the adoptive parents quickly investigated whether there had been a legal adoption. However, a complaint filed by the adoptive parents was declared unfounded by the Complaints Committee of the adoption mediator of [foundation01]. The applicant wishes to regain her original identity and - as the court understands - that all registrations relating to her adoption be removed from the registers.

The court is of the opinion that the request to cancel deed [number01] should be rejected.

To this end, she considers that this deed does not appear in the registrar's register without reason. After all, this deed states that it was drawn up "pursuant to an order of the court in [place03] of [order date02] 1993, ordering the registration in the register of births of the municipality of [place02] of a birth certificate drawn up on [date04] 1991 by the registrar of births, marriages and deaths in [place04], aforementioned, on page [page01], number [number04]." This does not constitute a situation as referred to in Article 1:24, first paragraph, of the Dutch Civil Code, namely that the deed appears without reason.

The court also considers the following. Cancellation of deed [number 01] (and thus also cancellation of deeds [number 03] and [number 02] and the later statement of revocation of the adoption pronounced on [date of decision 02] 1993 attached to deed [number 01]) will lead to the loss of all the aforementioned (and known in the Netherlands) historical data concerning the applicant in the Dutch government administration (Brp) and the civil registry. This does not do justice to the situation that these facts, however painful for the applicant, have had legal consequences and still do in some respects. For example, the applicant derives her Dutch nationality from the adoption and if all deeds were cancelled, this would no longer be traceable in the Dutch government administrations. For that reason, the civil servant argued at the hearing not to cancel deed [number 01] but to correct it. The court follows the civil servant's position on this point.

Amendment of deed [number01] of the year 1993

The applicant has requested, in the alternative, that the birth certificate [number01] of the year 1993, listed in the civil servant's register, be corrected in the sense that the applicant's surname and first name and the date of her birth are changed and that the certificate is supplemented with the details of her (biological) mother, [name02]. The court considers as follows.

Under Article 1:24, first paragraph, of the Dutch Civil Code, the court may, at the request of interested parties or the Public Prosecution Service, order the addition of a missing deed or subsequent entry to a civil status register, the deletion of a wrongly appearing deed or subsequent entry, or the correction of a deed or subsequent entry that is incomplete or contains an error.

Deed [number01] contains a marginal note showing that the applicant was adopted by “ [name03] ” and “ [name04] ” and that the surname (after the adoption) is “ [surname02] ”. The revocation of the adoption means that the surname [surname02] has lapsed and that the adoptive parents are no longer registered as the legal parents of the applicant. After all, the revocation of the adoption means that the family law relationship between the applicant on the one hand and the adoptive parents and their blood relatives on the other hand ceases to exist. This means that, as soon as an adoption is revoked, the situation as it was before the adoption revives.

This means that after the revocation of the adoption, the following information about the applicant remains in the deed [number 01] – insofar as relevant here:

first name: [firstnames01]

surname: [gender name]

date of birth: [date of birth01] 1986

place of birth: [place of birth02] , Ethiopia

The following follows from the documents and what was discussed at the hearing.

After the applicant's biological parents had written to the adoptive parents, the adoptive parents carried out a DNA test in 2000 between – insofar as relevant here – the applicant and [name02] (hereinafter also: the biological mother). The results of the DNA test submitted show that the chance that the biological mother is the applicant's actual mother is 99.999%. Furthermore, the biological mother submitted a signed statement in these proceedings in which she declares that she is the applicant's biological mother and that the applicant was born on [date05] 1997 Ethiopian calendar, being [date of birth02] 1985. According to the documents, the biological mother also made a similar statement on these points before an official in Ethiopia. This information also follows from the birth certificate , number [number05], drawn up in Ethiopia on 1 November 2022, which the applicant submitted, in response to the mother's statement.

Furthermore, the applicant explained at the hearing that, given the naming system in Ethiopia, ' [surname03] ' should be considered the mother's surname and ' [first names03] ' as her first names. Finally, the court infers from the submitted copy of the biological mother's passport that she was born on [date of birth03] 1970 in [place of birth02], Ethiopia.

The court thus arrives at the following, to which the civil servant agreed at the hearing.

Information about mother and surname of applicant

The court is of the opinion that the contents of the documents submitted in the proceedings and the proceedings at the hearing – as mentioned above – provide sufficient evidence and indications that the applicant was born from the woman with the first name ' [first names03] ' and surname ' [surname01] ', born on [date of birth03] 1970 in [place of birth02], Ethiopia.

The court will order that the deed [number01] be supplemented with this. The consequence of this is that the applicant has been given the surname ' [surname01] '. After all, on the basis of article 10:20 BW in conjunction with article 1:5 BW, a child who is only in a family law relationship with the mother, is given her surname. The court will therefore also order that the deed [number01] be improved in this sense.

Date of birth

In view of the foregoing, the court is also of the opinion that sufficient indications have been obtained that the applicant was born on [date of birth02] 1985, so that the deed [number01] must be corrected in that sense.

Change first name

Pursuant to Article 10:20 of the Dutch Civil Code, Dutch law applies to the request.

The court states that a change of first name – if granted – only comes about when a subsequent entry of the order ordering the change of first name is added to the birth certificate.

The official has no interest in this matter and has referred to the court's judgment.

The applicant stated that upon her adoption her first name “ [firstnames02] ” was changed to “ [firstnames01] ”. She requested that her first names be changed back to “ [firstnames02] ”. She stated that she was troubled by her adoption past and that was also the reason why she broke with her adoptive parents. She wishes to regain her original identity and the first name given to her at birth.

In the opinion of the court, there has been sufficient evidence of a weighty interest in granting the request for a change of first name. The requested first name is permitted according to the standards of article 1:4, paragraph 2, BW. The court will therefore grant the request for a change of first name.

Decision

The court:

*

orders the correction of the deed, number [number01], of the year 1993, appearing in the register of the municipality of [place02], and with it the attached deeds [number03] and [number02], in the sense that in this deed the surname and date of birth of the child are corrected, so that the child will be called:

surname: [gendername03]

date of birth: [date of birth02] 1985

and

the mother's data are supplemented with the following data:

mother's surname : [surname03]

mother's first name : [firstnames03]

mother's date of birth : [birthdate03] -1970

mother's place of birth : [place of birth02] , Ethiopia

*

orders the amendment of the applicant's first names, so that the first name will read: “ [firstnames02] ”;

*

rejects the additional or different request.