FAMILY LAW

(i) A special guardianship order is only appropriate if it is best fitted to meet the needs of the child concerned. The key question which the court is obliged to ask itself in every case in which the question of adoption, as opposed to special guardianship, arises is “which order will better serve the welfare of this particular child?” It is incumbent on judges to give full reasons and to explain their decisions with care.

Provided the judge has carefully
examined the facts, made appropriate findings in relation to them and applied the welfare check-lists contained in the Children Act 1989, s 1(3) and the Adoption and Children Act 2002, s 1, it is unlikely that the Court of Appeal will be able properly to interfere with the exercise of judicial discretion, particularly in a finely balanced case.

(ii) The court has power to make a special guardianship order of its own motion, where the welfare of the child is in issue in any family proceedings. The statute implicitly envisages an order being made against the wishes of the parties, and in a case in which the party seeking a different order eg adoption does not want to be appointed the child’s special guardian. Note that Re J [2007] EWCA Crim 55, contains a helpful Schedule of Main Differences between Special Guardianship Orders and Adoption which sets out the differences between the two orders in tabular form.