Ordinance on Adoption

¹This Or­din­ance reg­u­lates:

a.

the pro­ced­ure for pla­cing chil­dren for ad­op­tion;

b.

ac­cred­it­a­tion for ad­op­tion me­di­ation and the su­per­vi­sion there­of;

c.

the fees of the Con­fed­er­a­tion for in­ter­na­tion­al ad­op­tion cases.

²The pro­vi­sions of fed­er­al law and can­ton­al law on child pro­tec­tion are re­served.

¹The Fed­er­al Of­fice of Justice (FOJ) is re­spons­ible for:

a.

ful­filling the du­ties un­der Art­icle 2 HCAA as Cent­ral Au­thor­ity of the Con­fed­er­a­tion;

b.

grant­ing ac­cred­it­a­tion for ad­op­tion me­di­ation and su­per­vising the same;

c.

is­su­ing dir­ect­ives on child pro­tec­tion and on pre­vent­ing ab­uses in in­ter­na­tion­al ad­op­tions and in ad­op­tion me­di­ation cases;

d.

is­su­ing dir­ect­ives or re­com­mend­a­tions for the pur­pose of co­ordin­at­ing ad­op­tion mat­ters;

e.

rep­res­ent­ing Switzer­land in its deal­ings with for­eign ad­op­tion au­thor­it­ies and en­cour­aging co­oper­a­tion with such au­thor­it­ies;

f.

provid­ing ad­vice and in­form­a­tion to the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies, in par­tic­u­lar on the pro­ced­ure in coun­tries of ori­gin.

²The can­ton­al au­thor­ity un­der Art­icle 316 para­graph 1^bis of the Civil Code (can­ton­al au­thor­ity) is re­spons­ible for:

a.

ful­filling the du­ties un­der Art­icle 3 HCAA as the Can­ton­al Cent­ral Au­thor­ity;

b.

the au­thor­isa­tion pro­ced­ure for pla­cing chil­dren for ad­op­tion;

c.

sup­port­ing and su­per­vising the foster re­la­tion­ship un­til ad­op­tion;

d.

in­vest­ig­a­tions and re­ports for the FOJ, in par­tic­u­lar with re­gard to the ac­cred­it­a­tion of ad­op­tion agen­cies (Art. 12), stat­ist­ic­al in­form­a­tion and the costs of ad­op­tion pro­ced­ures.

³The can­ton may del­eg­ate its re­spons­ib­il­it­ies un­der para­graph 2 to an­oth­er can­ton or an in­ter­can­t­on­al au­thor­ity.

Ad­op­tion and place­ment for ad­op­tion may only take place if it is ex­pec­ted, giv­en the en­tire cir­cum­stances, that they are in the best in­terests of the child.

Any per­son who is ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent in Switzer­land and who wishes a child to be placed with him or her for ad­op­tion or who wishes to ad­opt a child from abroad re­quires au­thor­isa­tion from the can­ton­al au­thor­ity.

¹The can­ton­al au­thor­ity es­tab­lishes wheth­er the fu­ture ad­opt­ive par­ents are suit­able with re­gard to the best in­terests and needs of the child to be placed.

²A per­son is suit­able if:

a.

the en­tire cir­cum­stances, and in par­tic­u­lar the motives of the fu­ture ad­opt­ive par­ents, lead to the ex­pect­a­tion that the ad­op­tion will be in the best in­terests of the child;

b.

the best in­terests of oth­er chil­dren of the fu­ture ad­opt­ive par­ents are not put at risk;

c.

there are no leg­al obstacles to the ad­op­tion;

d.

the fu­ture ad­opt­ive par­ents:

1.

of­fer a guar­an­tee in terms of their per­son­al­ity, health, avail­able time, fin­an­cial cir­cum­stances and edu­ca­tion­al suit­ab­il­ity as well as their liv­ing con­di­tions for the good care, up­bring­ing and edu­ca­tion of the child,

2.

are pre­pared to ac­cept the child as he or she is, to re­spect his or her ori­gins, and to fa­mil­i­ar­ise the child in a suit­able way ac­cord­ing to his or her needs with the coun­try where he or she was ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent be­fore place­ment (coun­try of ori­gin),

3.

have not been con­victed of an of­fence that is in­com­pat­ible with ad­op­tion,

4.

have pre­pared suf­fi­ciently for the ad­op­tion, and in par­tic­u­lar have at­ten­ded suit­able pre­par­at­ory or in­form­at­ive events re­com­men­ded by the can­ton­al au­thor­ity,

5.

have de­clared in writ­ing that they will co­oper­ate in the pre­par­a­tion of post-ad­op­tion re­ports for the at­ten­tion of the coun­try of ori­gin,

6.

have ac­know­ledged their main­ten­ance ob­lig­a­tion con­tained in Art­icle 20 HCAA.

³Stricter re­quire­ments must be im­posed on the suit­ab­il­ity of the fu­ture ad­opt­ive par­ents when pla­cing a child over 4 years of age or a child with health is­sues or of two or more chil­dren are placed at the same time or there are already two or more chil­dren in the fam­ily.

⁴Par­ents may not be deemed suit­able if the age dif­fer­ence between the child to be placed and the fu­ture ad­opt­ive par­ents amounts to more than 45 years. By way of ex­cep­tion, the par­ents may nev­er­the­less be deemed suit­able, par­tic­u­larly if an in­tim­ate re­la­tion­ship already ex­ists between the fu­ture ad­opt­ive par­ents and the child to be placed.

⁵The can­ton­al au­thor­ity ap­points a per­son to as­sess the case who is pro­fes­sion­ally qual­i­fied in so­cial work or psy­cho­logy and who has pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence in child pro­tec­tion or ad­op­tion mat­ters.

⁶In or­der to con­firm com­pli­ance with para­graph 2 let­ter d num­ber 3, the can­ton­al au­thor­ity re­quests an ex­tract from the re­gister of crim­in­al con­vic­tions in­form­a­tion sys­tem (VOSTRA). In the case of for­eign na­tion­als, it re­quests an ex­tract from the re­gister of crim­in­al con­vic­tions in their coun­try of ori­gin or an equi­val­ent doc­u­ment. If crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings are pending in con­nec­tion with an of­fence which is in­com­pat­ible with ad­op­tion, the can­ton­al au­thor­ity sus­pends the as­sess­ment of suit­ab­il­ity un­til the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings have been fi­nally con­cluded.

¹If the re­quire­ments of Art­icle 5 are ful­filled, the can­ton­al au­thor­ity cer­ti­fies suit­ab­il­ity for ad­op­tion in a rul­ing.

²The cer­ti­fic­ate in par­tic­u­lar spe­cifies the coun­try of ori­gin and the min­im­um and max­im­um age of the child to be placed. It states wheth­er chil­dren with health is­sues may be placed.

³It re­mains val­id for a max­im­um of 3 years and may be made sub­ject to re­quire­ments and con­di­tions. It may be re­newed.

¹If the re­quire­ments of Art­icle 5 are ful­filled, au­thor­isa­tion may be gran­ted for the place­ment of a spe­cif­ic child provided the fol­low­ing doc­u­ments are sub­mit­ted:

a.

the cer­ti­fic­ate of suit­ab­il­ity of the fu­ture ad­opt­ive par­ents;

b.

a med­ic­al re­port on the child's health as well as a re­port on child's life story to date;

c.

the child's con­sent in­so­far as it may be ex­pec­ted due to his or her age and abil­it­ies;

d.

the con­sent of the child's par­ents to ad­op­tion or a de­clar­a­tion from the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity in the child's coun­try of ori­gin that such con­sent has been val­idly giv­en or an ex­plan­a­tion as to why it can­not be giv­en;

e.

a de­clar­a­tion un­der the law of the child's coun­try of ori­gin from the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity that the child may be placed with fu­ture ad­opt­ive par­ents in Switzer­land.

²The can­ton­al au­thor­ity may re­quest fur­ther doc­u­ments.

³If the doc­u­ments are not writ­ten in an of­fi­cial Swiss lan­guage, a trans­la­tion may be re­ques­ted or ar­ranged.

⁴The au­thor­isa­tion con­tains in par­tic­u­lar de­tails of the name and the date and place of birth of the child. It may be made sub­ject to re­quire­ments and con­di­tions.

⁵In the case of in­ter­na­tion­al ad­op­tions, the can­ton­al au­thor­ity de­cides be­fore the entry of the child wheth­er au­thor­isa­tion is to be gran­ted. In jus­ti­fied ex­cep­tion­al cases, it may agree to entry be­fore it de­cides on wheth­er to grant au­thor­isa­tion, in par­tic­u­lar if it is im­possible or un­reas­on­able to meet the de­mand that the doc­u­ments un­der para­graph 1 let­ters b-e be sub­mit­ted be­fore entry.

⁶In the case of chil­dren born in Switzer­land the can­ton­al au­thor­ity de­cides be­fore place­ment on wheth­er to grant au­thor­isa­tion.

¹The can­ton­al au­thor­ity sub­mits the cer­ti­fic­ate of suit­ab­il­ity or the au­thor­isa­tion to place a for­eign child to the can­ton­al mi­gra­tion au­thor­ity.

²The can­ton­al mi­gra­tion au­thor­ity de­cides wheth­er to au­thor­ise the is­sue of a visa or to guar­an­tee a res­id­ence per­mit for the child. It no­ti­fies the can­ton­al au­thor­ity of its de­cision.

³The can­ton­al mi­gra­tion au­thor­ity or, with its con­sent, the Swiss rep­res­ent­a­tion in the child's coun­try of ori­gin may is­sue the visa or the res­id­ence per­mit only if the doc­u­ments un­der Art­icle 7 para­graph 1 let­ters b-e have been sub­mit­ted and the can­ton­al au­thor­ity has gran­ted au­thor­isa­tion or by way of ex­cep­tion, has agreed to entry be­fore mak­ing a de­cision on au­thor­isa­tion.

¹The fu­ture ad­opt­ive par­ents must im­me­di­ately no­ti­fy the can­ton­al au­thor­ity of any sub­stan­tial changes in con­di­tions, in par­tic­u­lar re­la­tion­ship or house­hold or of any change of ad­dress.

²They must no­ti­fy the can­ton­al au­thor­ity with­in ten days of the child's entry.

³The can­ton­al au­thor­ity in­forms the child pro­tec­tion au­thor­ity¹ with a view to ap­point­ing a wel­fare ad­voc­ate (Art. 17 HCAA) or a guard­i­an (Art. 18 HCAA) and if ap­plic­able the can­ton­al mi­gra­tion au­thor­ity.

¹The can­ton­al au­thor­ity sat­is­fies it­self that the au­thor­isa­tion re­quire­ments are be­ing met. It ap­points a suit­able per­son to vis­it the fu­ture ad­opt­ive fam­ily as of­ten as ne­ces­sary, but at least twice a year. This per­son as­sesses how the child is be­ing cared for and sub­mits a re­port to the can­ton­al au­thor­ity.

²If short­com­ings are iden­ti­fied, the can­ton­al au­thor­ity re­quests the fu­ture ad­opt­ive par­ents to take im­me­di­ate meas­ures to rem­edy these, and to re­port back to it on the im­ple­ment­a­tion of the meas­ures.

³If the au­thor­isa­tion re­quire­ments are not met, the can­ton­al au­thor­ity re­vokes the au­thor­isa­tion or the cer­ti­fic­ate of suit­ab­il­ity where these ex­ist. It no­ti­fies the com­pet­ent child pro­tec­tion au­thor­ity and, if ne­ces­sary, the can­ton­al mi­gra­tion au­thor­ity.

⁴If the child is in Switzer­land, the can­ton­al au­thor­ity ar­ranges new ac­com­mod­a­tion for the child or re­quests the com­pet­ent child pro­tec­tion au­thor­ity to do so.

¹Where a per­son breaches ob­lig­a­tions arising from this Sec­tion or a rul­ing is­sued on the basis there­of, the can­ton­al au­thor­ity may im­pose a dis­cip­lin­ary fine not ex­ceed­ing 2000 francs.

²If a dis­cip­lin­ary fine is im­posed, the can­ton­al au­thor­ity may in cases of wil­ful re­pe­ti­tion give no­tice that a pen­alty may be im­posed for con­tempt of of­fi­cial or­ders un­der Art­icle 292 of the Crim­in­al Code¹.

¹Any per­son who wishes to of­fer ser­vices in Switzer­land in match­ing chil­dren re­leased for ad­op­tion and fu­ture ad­opt­ive par­ents, and in par­tic­u­lar any per­son who wishes to ad­vise on the pos­sib­il­ity of ad­opt­ing a minor child (an ad­op­tion agency), re­quires ac­cred­it­a­tion from the FOJ.

²Pub­lic leg­al en­tit­ies and char­it­able private leg­al en­tit­ies may be gran­ted ac­cred­it­a­tion provided the nat­ur­al per­sons that are re­spons­ible on their be­half for ad­op­tion me­di­ation meet the ac­cred­it­a­tion re­quire­ments.

¹Any per­son who ap­plies for ac­cred­it­a­tion as an ad­op­tion agency must:

a.

be able to prove that they have suit­able ex­per­i­ence of their activ­it­ies and pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fic­a­tions in so­cial work, psy­cho­logy or com­par­able spe­cial­ist fields;

b.

be fa­mil­i­ar with and com­ply with Swiss and in­ter­na­tion­al ad­op­tion law as well as the law of the coun­tries of ori­gin of the chil­dren;

c.

up­hold the best in­terests of the child and com­ply with the ba­sic eth­ic­al rules for the field of ad­op­tion;

d.

have de­tailed know­ledge of the cul­tur­al and so­cial con­di­tions in the coun­tries of ori­gin of the chil­dren;

e.

dis­close their re­la­tion­ships with its agents and their work­ing meth­ods in the chil­dren's coun­tries of ori­gin and in Switzer­land;

f.

guar­an­tee that ad­opt­ive par­ents are in­formed, ad­vised, su­per­vised and sup­por­ted be­fore and after the ad­op­tion;

g.

dis­close the planned me­di­ation fee and pay­ment terms in Switzer­land and abroad;

h.

be dom­i­ciled in Switzer­land.

²Private leg­al en­tit­ies must also sub­mit their art­icles of in­cor­por­a­tion and dis­close the iden­tity of the mem­bers of their man­age­ment bod­ies.

³The FOJ may re­quire ad­di­tion­al in­form­a­tion to be provided.

Ac­cred­it­a­tion to me­di­ate in ad­op­tion cases is gran­ted for a lim­ited peri­od of a max­im­um of 5 years. The ac­cred­it­a­tion doc­u­ment must in par­tic­u­lar name the coun­tries of ori­gin for which ac­cred­it­a­tion has been gran­ted.

Ad­op­tion agen­cies must no­ti­fy the FOJ im­me­di­ately of any changes that af­fect the ac­cred­it­a­tion re­quire­ments.

The ad­op­tion agency may pro­pose a spe­cif­ic child to the fu­ture ad­opt­ive par­ents only if the re­quire­ments for the place­ment of the child are ful­filled. In par­tic­u­lar, a cer­ti­fic­ate of suit­ab­il­ity must be is­sued and the can­ton­al au­thor­ity must be in­formed.

¹The ad­op­tion agency must pass on to the fu­ture ad­opt­ive par­ents and the can­ton­al au­thor­ity all in­form­a­tion in its pos­ses­sion on the child and his or her bio­lo­gic­al par­ents.

²It must ad­vise the fu­ture ad­opt­ive par­ents of any dif­fi­culties that the in­ten­ded place­ment of a child may en­tail.

The ad­op­tion agency has the right to ap­pro­pri­ate re­mu­ner­a­tion for its activ­it­ies and costs.

¹The ad­op­tion agency must keep a sep­ar­ate case file for every ad­opt­ive child.

²On re­quest, it must hand over such files to the can­ton­al au­thor­ity or to the FOJ.

³It must store the files safely and on con­clu­sion of its activ­it­ies at the latest hand them over for safe­keep­ing to the can­ton­al au­thor­ity com­pet­ent at the time of ad­op­tion.

The ad­op­tion agency must sub­mit a re­port to the FOJ an­nu­ally on its activ­it­ies and provide the FOJ and the can­ton­al au­thor­ity with in­form­a­tion on re­quest. The FOJ may is­sue guidelines on the con­tent and form of the an­nu­al re­port.

The ad­op­tion agency must co­oper­ate with the com­pet­ent au­thor­it­ies in Switzer­land and abroad.

¹The ad­op­tion agency and its aux­il­i­ary staff must treat as con­fid­en­tial any in­form­a­tion that they ob­tain in the ex­er­cise of their activ­it­ies.

²The duty of con­fid­en­ti­al­ity does not ter­min­ate on com­ple­tion of their me­di­ation activ­it­ies.

¹The FOJ re­vokes ac­cred­it­a­tion if the ad­op­tion agency:

a.

no longer meets the re­quire­ments for grant­ing ac­cred­it­a­tion;

b.

re­peatedly or ser­i­ously breaches its ob­lig­a­tions.

²It may im­pose a dis­cip­lin­ary fine not ex­ceed­ing 5000 francs on any per­son who car­ries out me­di­ation activ­it­ies without ac­cred­it­a­tion.

Un­less this Or­din­ance spe­cific­ally provides oth­er­wise, the pro­vi­sions of the Gen­er­al Fees Or­din­ance of 8 Septem­ber 2004¹ ap­ply.

The fol­low­ing ser­vices provided by the FOJ are sub­ject to a fee:

a.

the pro­vi­sion of in­form­a­tion as well as the ac­cept­ance, ex­am­in­a­tion and trans­mis­sion of com­mu­nic­a­tions, re­ports and de­cisions of the re­spons­ible can­ton­al and for­eign cent­ral au­thor­it­ies as well as of oth­er state agen­cies or ad­op­tion agen­cies;

b.

the tak­ing of all the meas­ures re­quired to ar­range to de­par­ture of the child from the coun­try of ori­gin or his or her entry in­to the re­ceiv­ing state and his or her per­man­ent res­id­ency to­geth­er with ac­com­mod­a­tion there;

c.

the is­sue of an entry doc­u­ment in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 10 HCAA.

¹The fee for ser­vices un­der Art­icle 25 let­ters a and b is based on the time worked and, in­clus­ive of out­lays, amounts to between 200 and 1000 francs.

²The fee for is­su­ing an entry doc­u­ment un­der Art­icle 10 HCAA is gov­erned by the Or­din­ance of 29 Novem­ber 2006¹ on the Fees charged by Swiss Dip­lo­mat­ic and Con­su­lar Rep­res­ent­a­tions.

In re­sponse to a writ­ten re­quest, the FOJ may re­duce or waive the fee in terms of Art­icle 26 para­graph 1, in par­tic­u­lar in view of the fin­an­cial cir­cum­stances of the per­son li­able to pay or for oth­er good cause.

The re­peal and amend­ment of the cur­rent le­gis­la­tion is reg­u­lated in the An­nex.

This Or­din­ance comes in­to force on 1 Janu­ary 2012.