The Gazette 1974

have accepted that and tried to assist her in some other choice. Mr. Justice Butler said that similarly he did not regard the letter of July 8th as an ultimatum calculated to drive the mother to act against her will. She knew from the previous Monday that the adopters intended to give the child back at the end of the week. After receiving the letter and while the consent was still unsigned she met the father. If she were in fact un- willing to have the child adopted surely she would have confided in him instead of leaving him under his mistaken belief that the dye was long since cast and was irrevocable. The Judge said he accepted that the mother was reluctant to execute the conscnt but he rejected that she was influenced thereto in the manner suggested or that any undue influence was used. Her action was dictated by her refusal to entertain any alternative and Counsel for the plaintiffs (Mr. H. Barron, S.C.) also threw out but did not develop the submission that as the mother was herself an infant any consent of hers to be valid must be shown to be for her benefit. Mr. Justice Butler said he was not satisfied that the prin- ciple of the law of contracts could be imported into the circumstances of this type of case. Even if it did apply he was not furnished with any evidence or submissions to suggest that at the time and in the circumstances when it was given the consent was unbeneficial. The plaintiffs' second and third grounds could be taken together and the submission as he understood it was as follows : Section 9 of the Adoption Act empow- ered the Adoption Board to make an order; Section 31 provided that the Board should not make an adoption order unless satisfied that the applicant was of good moral character, had sufficient means to support the child and was a suitable person to have parental rights and duties in respect of the child; Section 15 (3) pro- vided that the Board should satisfy itself that every per- son whose consent was necessary and had not been dis- pensed with had given consent and understands the nature and effect of the consent and the adoption order. It was submitted, he said, that in the procedure before the Board the care that the Board took with regard to being satisfied as to the matters required by Section 13, examining the application form in detail, considering the report of its investigating officers and social workers, and interviewing the applicants, was to be contrasted with the mere formal requirements that Forms 10 and 4A were on the file, which could in no way satisfy the Board because they did not examine them of the matters required by Scction 15. Alleged contrasting approach unfair to mother This contrasting approach as between the applicants who acquired rights under the Adoption Order and the mother who lost them, it was submitted, was unfair to the mother, contrary to natural justice and contrary to constitutional justice in that she was not treated equally with the applicants and was deprived of her rights without compliance with the statutory provisions. Mr. Justice Butler said that in his view this argument failed. The matters on which the Board must be satis- fied in relation to the adopters were different in quality, nature and degree from those in relation to the mother. by the imperative necessity to act. Law of Contract cannot be imported

In the latter case all they must be satisfied of were two matters of fact, that she had given her consent and that she understood the nature and effect of the consent and of the adoption order. The first was evidenced by her affidavit. If it was correctly dated and sworn and was good on its face it spoke for itself. The evidence for the second was the acknowledge- ment by the mother in Form 10 that she had received and retained a statement in the form prescribed by the Board setting out fully and correctly the nature and effect of the adoption order and setting out the neces- sity for consent. True, the nature and effect of the con- sent were not completely set out and . there might be cases where this would be of such moment as to require further consideration. The registrar of the Board was an experienced officer. The practice of the Board was that no application should be placed before it unless the consent and acknowledgement were in order and on the file and, while one might wish for a somewhat tighter practice, it could not be said that this procedure was a non-compliance or insufficient compliance with Section 15. Consent could be revoked until order made On the other hand, the nature of the requirements of Section 13 necessitated an examination of the apph" cants and their background such as undertaken in this case. The omission of the required information that the mother was shown to have had and understood on the face of Form 10 and Form 4A was that the consent could be revoked at any time up to the making of the adoption order (Section 15 (5)). He was not sure that this provision was necessary for an appreciation of the nature and effect of a consent. He reserved the point. He was, however, quite satisfied that had the mother known that she could withdraw her consent she would not have done so before the adoption order was made- She gave her consent after meeting the father at mid- day on Friday, July 9th. She was still unwilling t0 marry him and she did not inform him, not only that the adoption was not irrevocable, but that the arrange- ment was over and that they could have the child back on the following day. "I am convinced that her attitude had not changed until well after the order was made," said Mr. Justice Butler. For these reasons these submissions were not made out and he held that there was sufficient compliance with Section 15, that there was no unfairness in the treat- ment of the mother as compared with the adopters and that there was no failure to apply the principles of natural justice or constitutional justice. The next submission was that at the date of the enactment of the Constitution there existed a statutory right in the child conferred in the Legitimacy Act, 1931» to be legitimated by the subsequent marriage of his parents; this was one of the personal rights recognise® and protected by the Constitution and was incapable 01 being taken away by statute. Consequently, the m a f ' riage of the parents on 6 June 1972, ipso facto rendered the child their legitimate child and rendered the adop' tion order null and void. No statutory right conferred by Legitimacy Act, 1931 He rejected this submission. He had indicated in th e argument that if the proposition were well founded adoption order such as this could ever be final until th e death of one of the parents of an illegitimate child- 248