FCC embroiled in adoption legal wrangle
Mpho Mokwape | Monday January 17, 2022 06:00
The legal battle started when the council found an error in investigations regarding the process of adoption and immediately ceased the visitation rights of the supposed parents indicating that it would be halting the adoption process which was already in motion.
The decision as explained by the supposed adoptive parents forced them to take legal action arguing that they had already bonded with the child and were keen on finishing the adoption process of the baby. Justice Jennifer Dube of Lobatse High Court has interdicted the council from interfering in the care and visitation rights of the supposed adoptive parents.
The judge said the adoptive candidates would continue visiting the child pending the couple’s intention to launch an application challenging the town clerk’s decision to halt the adoption process. "The council be and is hereby interdicted from implementing its decision to terminate the couple’s visitation and access rights with respect to the minor child in question,” reads the order. Justice Dube also declared that the status quo in place would remain and the couple allowed to enjoy the visitation and access rights over the minor on such terms as they may from time to time agree with SOS Children’s Village,” reads the order. According to the background of the case, the supposed adoptive parents who cannot be named for protection of the minor child in question were sometime around March 2021 granted visitation rights and access to the child as a way of facilitating the adoption process.
Then around December 2021 the town clerk, Lopang Pule wrote a letter to the couple cancelling the proposed adoption of the baby. According to the letter dated December 21, 2021, it regrettably informed the couple that the FCC had decided to halt with immediate effect the request for adoption of the baby. “The FCC in an endeavor to prepare you psychologically on this matter following the developments of this case found it fit to instigate the interactions with yourselves through meetings and counseling sessions conducted by the Chief Social and Community Development Officer, Town Clerk and subsequently the Chief Internal Auditor,” reads the letter.
The letter further stated that as a result, the proposed process of adoption of the baby would be halted and that the council through the town clerk resolved to also halt with immediate effect the visitation rights that were extended to the couple by the Department of Social and Community Development without consent of the office of the town clerk as the accounting officer. The genesis of the case dates back to January 2021 when the couple made an application to the council to be registered and recorded as individuals seeking to adopt a minor child in need of parental care. In or around March 2021, the couple explained that they were informed by a representative of the council that there was a minor child who had recently been abandoned by his biological parents at birth and was admitted to SOS children’s village on January 25, 2021.
The couple said upon many communications and a visit to see the child, the council’s representatives subjected them to counselling and assessment and initiated that they were the perfect candidates to adopt the baby. “They proceeded to inform us that we could therefore, initiate the adoption process and that in the meantime, we would be granted visitation and access rights to see if a stronger bond and connection with the baby would develop pending the said adoption,” said the couple. The adoptive parents said they exercised the visitation where they began consistently taking care of the baby not only emotionally but also financially and physically since May 2021.
They said after forming such bond and considering the baby as their own as they were even allowed to take him to their matrimonial home, they were perplexed when they received a call sometime in November 2021 from the council’s representative telling them things were not going well with the adoption process and that an error had been identified and that visitation has been terminated. “We attempted to challenge the termination but instead of being heard out, the council followed up the decision with another which ordered that the adoption process be ceased with immediate effect pending internal investigations,” said the couple.
Ndadi Law firm represents the couple while the council is represented by its legal department.