Ordinance
on Adoption
(Adoption Ordinance, AdoptO)

¹ The 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.

² The 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.

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