New South Wales Repealed Acts

This legislation has been repealed.

ADOPTION OF CHILDREN ACT 1965 - SECT 31

31 Defective consents

(1) The Court may refuse to make an adoption order in reliance on a consent given or purporting to have been given by a person (other than the child) if it appears to the Court that:

(a) the consent was not given in accordance with this Act,

(b) the consent was obtained by fraud, duress or other improper means,

(c) the instrument of consent has been altered in a material particular without authority, or

(d) the person giving or purporting to give the consent was not, at the time the instrument of consent was signed, in a fit condition to give the consent or did not understand the nature of the consent.

(2) The Court shall not make an adoption order in reliance on an instrument of consent signed by the mother of the child before the birth of the child.

(3) The Court shall not make an adoption order in reliance on an instrument of consent signed by the mother of the child on, or within three days after, the day on which the child was born unless it is proved that, at the time the instrument was signed, the mother was in a fit condition to give the consent.

(4) For the purposes of subsection (3) a certificate of a legally qualified medical practitioner certifying that, at the time when the instrument of consent was signed by the mother of the child, the mother was in a fit condition to give the consent is evidence of the matter so certified.