The Supreme Court judgment in Re X and Y (Children: Adoption Order: Setting Aside) [2026] UKSC 13 was published on 22 April. We had watched the hearing and we wrote about it in this post on 20 February – Undoing an adoption order: an update.
We don’t have a lot to add to that post as we didn’t think the court was very receptive to the arguments put in appeal. We aren’t surprised that the Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeal decision that the High Court doesn’t have any power under its inherent jurisdiction to set aside an adoption order that was validly made, on welfare grounds.
There’s a helpful summary of the case in this BBC news item: ‘Supreme Court rejects bid to revoke adoption of sisters’.
While the judgment sets out the reasons that the sisters’ adoption could not be undone by a High Court, it also confirms the law more generally. This is summarised in the Supreme Court Press Summary:
‘… the notional use of the inherent jurisdiction to revoke a valid adoption order as a safety net to protect children in exceptional circumstances would also cut across the statutory scheme in the ACA 2002. This is because adoption orders are final and permanent, and irrevocable except on one very limited ground, namely the legitimation exception* which is rarely (if ever) used [89]. If the court’s prospective assessment as to adoption being in the child’s welfare interests turns out to be incorrect, the court has numerous carefully calibrated powers which are available to protect children. These include making a further adoption order, a power which could have been used in this case.** Moreover, the position of an adopted child is no different from that of a child living with their natural parents [127].
There is no remaining scope for the exercise of the inherent power to revoke an adoption order and it is wrong to approach the question of jurisdiction by saying that if a child’s welfare makes it necessary, the jurisdiction must exist. AM did not advance a case based on the European Convention on Human Rights or the Human Rights Act 1998. In any event, the court’s duty under section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 can only operate within the limits of the court’s existing jurisdiction. Additionally, it is difficult to imagine a situation that could justify revocation of a valid adoption order to comply with obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights given the range of other statutory powers available [128]-[133]. Nor is there anything in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child that requires a validly made adoption order to be capable of revocation [135].
* Under section 55 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002, if an unmarried parent adopted his/her own child and later married the other parent, so the child became ‘legitimate’, they could apply to set aside the adoption.
** The birth mother could have applied to herself adopt the sisters, while they were still children. However, the sisters had not wanted to continue any legal fiction of adoption.
The judgment may be useful to consult as authoritative on the history and law of adoption, but the outcome is disappointing for people who wish they hadn’t been given adoptive status by a court.