Karlsruhe opens successive adoption
A ruling from Karlsruhe allowed civil partners to adopt their partner's adopted child too.
On 19 February 2013, the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe announced a ruling that made a noticeable difference for many rainbow families in Germany. The First Senate declared the ban on so-called successive adoption by registered civil partners unconstitutional.
Behind the unwieldy term lies a simple question. May a woman adopt the child her civil partner has already adopted? For biological children, this had been possible since 2005; this is known as stepchild adoption. For adopted children, however, the door remained closed. Married couples could do both.
The proceedings had been initiated by, among others, a doctor from Münster. Her long-standing partner had adopted a girl, and the doctor wanted to become the child's legal mother too. The courts turned her down. She took her case all the way to Karlsruhe.
There, the judges rejected the legislature's arguments. A registered civil partnership was just as permanent and characterised by binding responsibility as a marriage. The fear that growing up with two mothers or two fathers would harm a child was rejected by the vast majority of the experts heard. On the contrary: a second legal parent strengthened the child, for example in matters of maintenance, inheritance or if the couple separated.
The legislature was given a deadline of the end of June 2014. So that affected families did not have to wait, the court ordered that successive adoption be possible with immediate effect. In May 2014, the Bundestag implemented the ruling, but confined itself to the bare minimum. Joint adoption of a child by two civil partners remained prohibited.
In practice, same-sex couples could thus adopt a child together, just one after the other. The detour showed how little the unequal treatment could still be justified. Full equality in adoption law only came with marriage equality in 2017.