Adoption Secrecy Has Been Dropped in Bulgaria

The National Assembly adopted in the second reading changes to the Family Code, with which the secrecy of adoption is removed and the work of the national system for full adoption is improved. GERB and DPS at the last moment supported the idea of WCC-DB to drop the secrecy of adoption.

In the last two years, the number of adoptions has fallen twice. The changes optimize the full adoption procedure and create a national information system for electronic applications.

Currently, according to the law, adoptive parents or an adopted child who has reached the age of 16 can request from the district court, which issued the decision to admit the adoption, that they be provided with information about the origin of the adopted child, when important circumstances require it.

With the adoption of today's bill in the second reading from Art. 105 of the Family Code, the so-called "important circumstances" when providing origin information. The right of the adopted person to know his origin is valued.

The district court, in a court session behind closed doors, after listening to the adoptee's birth parents and the prosecutor's conclusion, issues a decision.

Before the discussion started in the hall, GERB and DPS made a joint statement on the sidelines, in which they announced that they had agreed that the secrecy of adoption should be dropped completely.

The proposal to drop the secret is WCC-DB's. At the last meeting of the legal commission, GERB and DPS rejected the texts on the disclosure of the origin of the adopted child by the court. However, today they announced that they had agreed to support the proposal.

Hatidje Georgieva from DPS explained that the proposals of the DPS are three - one is related to an opinion from the Child Protection Department in the case of adoption of a grandchild by the grandparents, the next includes expanding access to the national electronic and information system, and the third is for monitoring the child after it has been adopted to ensure that its rights are respected.

All three proposals were accepted in the plenary hall.

The draft law regulates the legal impossibility of refusing to establish the origin of a child. The regulatory changes also create an opportunity for mediation services to be used to avoid emotional shocks on both sides.

The possibility of "de-adoption", which, according to the petitioners, further traumatizes the children is also eliminated.

According to GERB, over two million people in Bulgaria are indirectly affected by the topic of adoptions.

During the discussion, an intra-party dispute took place.

Branimir Balachev from GERB opposed the main proponent of the bill, Denitsa Sacheva, and called for the secret of adoption to be revealed at an age when the adopted person can understand what actually draws them to this information and what the consequences are.

According to him, the correct age to disclose the adoption secret is 21 years. According to him, then the adopted person should ask the court, without giving specific reasons why, to find out who his biological parents are.

Tsvetan Predov from "There Is Such a People" emphasized that there is a difference between an adoption secret and adoption information. He explained that there are three main groups - a child subject to adoption, biological parents and adoptive parents. All three groups must at any time be able to understand all the information for which the child was offered for adoption, stressed Predov.

The former foreign minister from GERB Ekaterina Zaharieva surprisingly announced that she herself adopted a child - during the coronavirus pandemic. She expressed the opinion that adopted children, as well as their parents, have the full right of access to information on the matter.

Deputy Hristo Petrov, better known as "Itso Hazarda", said that today's meeting was historic.

"One sentence will be removed from the Family Code, which destroys human destinies and forces people to search for their parents not through the law, but through TV shows and Facebook groups," he said.

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