Victorian Consolidated Legislation

Adoption Act 1984 - SECT 42

Defective consents

42. Defective consents



(1) The Court shall not make an adoption order in reliance on a consent given
or purporting to have been given by a person 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 or duress;

   (c)  the consent was revoked at a time when it had not become irrevocable;

   (d)  the instrument of consent has been altered in a material particular
        without authority;

   (e)  the person giving or purporting to give the consent was not, when the
        instrument of consent was signed, in a fit condition to give the
        consent or did not understand the nature of the consent; or

   (f)  the instrument of consent was signed before the birth of the child.

(2) The Court shall not make an adoption order in reliance on an instrument of
consent signed by a parent of the child within the prescribed period after the
birth of the child.

(3) In subsection (2), prescribed period means fourteen days or, where the
Court has ordered that it is in the best interests of the child that a shorter
period be applied, that shorter period.

(4) Notwithstanding subsections (1) and (2), any consent to the adoption of
the child validly given before the commencement of this section pursuant to
the Adoption of Children Act 1964 shall be valid and effectual for the
purposes of this Act.