The Ministry of Justice is seeking opinions on the draft Law on Adopting (amended).
According to the draft, this Law stipulates the settlement of adoption, after settlement of adoption, legal consequences of adoption, termination of adoption and state management of adoption.
The draft has supplemented specific regulations on the age gap between adopters and adopted children. Current law only requires adopters to be 20 years older than the adopted child. In addition to this minimum condition, the law has not set any limits on the maximum age.
The draft law maintains the requirement that the adoptee must be at least 20 years older than the adopted person, but at the same time supplements the regulation that the maximum age gap is 50 years.
In special cases, this age gap can be greater if the adoption is determined to be for the best interests of the child. For cases where husband and wife adopt children together, the age gap is calculated according to the younger person among the two.
According to the drafting agency, the new regulation is introduced to limit the excessive age difference between adoptive parents and adopted children. The age gap is too large, which can lead to significant psychological and physiological differences, affecting the process of caring for, educating and accompanying children in the process of maturity.
In addition, the age limit is also aimed at ensuring that adopters have sufficient conditions to care for, nurture and educate children until they grow up.
In the context that the number of children who need to be adopted is not large, while the number of people who need to be adopted is increasing, the drafting agency believes that it is necessary to build stricter criteria to choose the most suitable family for children.
The draft law also adds some cases where adoption is not allowed. According to current regulations, people who are restricted in their parental rights to minor children, are serving imprisonment or have not been expunged from criminal records for some crimes related to human and child abuse will not be allowed to adopt children.
The draft continues to inherit these regulations but at the same time adds a new group of subjects. These are people who have been sentenced to prison but are given suspended sentences and are still in probation for crimes of infringing upon human life, health, dignity, and honor; crimes of domestic violence; or crimes of infringing upon the marriage and family regime.
According to the drafting agency, although not having to serve a prison sentence at a detention facility, people who are in probation period are still subjects that need to be managed and supervised according to the provisions of law.
In this case, the interests of children may be affected if the adopter does not fully ensure the conditions of living environment, ethics and childcare capacity.
The Law on Adopting (amended) is expected to be submitted and passed at the 2nd Session, 16th National Assembly.
