In the future, single people will be able to adopt foreign minors in a situation of abandonment, it being understood that the judge then ascertains the emotional suitability of the aspiring parent and his ability to educate, instruct and maintain the minor.
Is what the Constitutional Court with the sentence n.33, Described on Friday, with which he declared article 29-bis, paragraph 1, of law number 184 of 1983 in the part in which he does not include singles among those who can adopt a foreign minor residing abroad.
The Court said that this exclusion is in contrast to Articles 2 and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitutionthe latter in relation to article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The discipline declared illegitimate, according to the Court, compressed disproportionately the interest of the aspiring parent to make itself available compared to an institution, which is the adoption, inspired by a principle of social solidarity to protect the minor.
The interest in becoming parents, while not attributing a claim to adopt, falls into the freedom of self -determination of the person and must be taken into consideration, together with the multiple and primary interests of the minorin the judgment on non -unreasonableness and not disproportion to the choices made by the legislator. The Court has therefore noted that individual people are in the abstract suitable to ensure the minor in a state of abandonment a stable and harmonious environment, it being understood that the judge then ascertains the emotional suitability of the aspiring parent and his ability to educate, instruct and maintain the minor. This assessment can also take into account the reference family network of the aspiring parent. Highlighted the guarantees placed to protect the minor, the Court also observed that, in the current legal-social context characterized by a significant reduction in applications for adoption, The absolute prohibition imposed on individual people risks “reflecting negatively on the same effectiveness of the minor’s right to be accepted in a stable and harmonious family environment”.
The Court’s decision must be inserted in the context of the number of international adoptions which according to the latest data provided by the International Adoptions Commission (CAI), In the first half of 2024 234 adoptions were concluded, against 478 of 2023 and 565 of 2022.
The couples who gave their availability to adoption, considering those that have obtained the suitability from the Juvenile Courts, however, are three times many. According to the ministerial data referring to the 2022, the couples with a decree of suitability were 1,462, while the adoptions concluded 527. All married couples, according to the provisions of Law 184, before the judgment of the Consulta. From these numbers it is clear that the available couples are more numerous Of the singles and, therefore, with the same condition, will a judge prefer a single to a couple with, perhaps, natural children?
For Cesare Mirabelli, Emeritus President of the Consulta, the sentence, commented “is not shocking, but is located overall in a vein of progressive expansion of the possibilities of adoption. It is allowed to people residing in Italy who intend to adopt a foreign minor residing abroad to express their availability and to be evaluated to the suitability for adoption. The novelty is precisely this: to predict that they can manifest the willingness to adopt and request the evaluation of suitability also of individuals and the Court will concretely establish whether it is in the interest of the specific minor to provide for this adoption». A sentence that also contains a “underlining that is not legal: in the face of a progressive reduction of adoptions, in particular of international ones, the possibility of expanding the sphere of adoptants, however safeguarding the interest of the minor, can be a tool that meets needs that manifest themselves”.
To the question if the principle of valid also for the National Adoptions Mirabelli replied that “yes, because otherwise there would be inequality. The sentence concerns a particular situation but has a general scope. The adoption for an abandoned minor in Italy is however connected to the best conditions that the minor can have. If they are awaiting adoption of big -thinking families, formed by father and mother, that is the ideal context, but it cannot be so absolute that there may be an opportunity also for the adoption by the individual which facilitates the attribution to the minor of a family context “.
The associations are very perplexed. “We also take into account that the couples are higher with a decree of suitability pending compared to the availability of adopted children,” he said Frida Tonizzo, Amphaa President (National Associations adoptive and foster families), “there is the right of children without family to be adopted, not the right of adults to adopt”. Of the same tenor the comment of Marco Griffini, President of Ai.Bi-Amici of the Ets children who in Italy has a nation office and 25 between information points and regional offices, while in the world there is in more than 30 countries: “We are happy that singles are also spoken as well as married couples, but it is not a historical turning point. Because these singles risk lengthening the waiting list by adding to couples “, he explains,” in 2024 there were 540 international adoptions and 1880 couples on the waiting list. Thus the relaunch of international adoption is not resolved. The problems are others, for example the problem of costs that start from 20 thousand euros. Because the Consulta – he added – was unable to examine the elimination of the discrimination between the gratuity of national adoption and assisted fertilization and excessive costs that a couple must bear to go abroad. And this is one of the fundamental causes he has made and is decreasing international adoptions. We have couples who have not adopted because the banks do not give him the mortgage. They tell me it is easier to buy a car than to get a mortgage for a child. There is a reimbursement of expenses but not a free. The other request is that in every embassy there is an employee to international adoptions “. On a legal level, recalls Griffini, the concrete decision on the individual case belongs to the judge. And he underlines that many foreign countries “do not admit the adoption of singles”. “Married couples fall, singles advance and, therefore, the availability to adoption increases. More people of goodwill are welcome to take charge of the fate of a son not and to free him from the slavery of abandonment. But, let’s ask ourselves, – adds Griffini – Is this the solution to relaunch the international adoption for the benefit of this huge army of millions of girls and boys abandoned in orphanages around the world? Or wouldn’t he do better to finally recommend to political institutions that international adoption must play a pre -eminent role in Italy’s foreign policy? So yes we could say that we had witnessed a historical turning point ».
