Namibia: Judge Slams Official for Stalling Adoption

Werner Menges

24 September 2009

AN OFFICIAL in the Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare who has been delaying the adoption of a Namibian baby by a Canadian woman became the target of stinging criticism from a Judge in the High Court yesterday.

His court is tired of Government officials wasting public resources, Judge Sylvester Mainga remarked during the hearing of an application in which he was asked to order the Minister of Gender Equality and Child Welfare and the Registrar of Adoptions, who is an official in the Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare, to register a Canadian teacher's adoption of an almost two-month-old baby girl. The adoption had been approved by the Children's Court in Windhoek about a month ago.

The Judge signalled his frustration over the need to approach the court with a case in which the Minister and the Registrar of Adoptions were accused of having flouted an adoption order that was issued by the Commissioner of Child Welfare, Magistrate Rina Horn, in the Windhoek Children's Court on August 21.

The kind of attitude of Government officials as in the case before him should not be tolerated any longer, Judge Mainga said. Such officials should be locked up for violating court orders, he said. It is also time that officials like the Registrar of Adoptions should be ordered to personally pay the costs of an unnecessary case that has to be taken to court because of a stance that they have adopted, the Judge said.

The applicant in the case before him was a Canadian teacher who adopted a Namibian baby after the baby's biological mother chose her as the child's adoptive parent.

The baby's biological mother decided before the baby's birth that she wanted to give the girl up for adoption, the court was informed.

The adoptive mother is a 43-year-old primary school teacher living in the Vancouver area in British Columbia in Canada.

The biological mother is 25 years old. She also has an older child who is living with a relative because she is not in a financial position to take care of the child, the court was informed.

The adoptive mother informed the court in an affidavit that she approached an adoption agency in Canada to assist her in her wish to adopt a Namibian baby. A Canadian friend of hers who worked in Namibia for a while had also adopted a Namibian child, she stated.

The adoption agency later informed her that the biological mother of a child had chosen her as the child's adoptive parent. After the baby was born in late July, she travelled to Namibia to proceed with the adoption process.

The baby was placed in her care when she was nine days old and has been staying with her in an apartment in Windhoek since then, she stated. She is planning to fly back to Canada with the baby on September 28.

A social worker from the Canadian adoption agency and a Namibian social worker, Waldi Kubirske, wrote glowing reports on the adoptive mother in which they recommended that her adoption of the child should be approved.

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare's Permanent Secretary, Sirkka Ausiku, however also wrote a letter to Magistrate Horn on August 11 in which she informed the Magistrate that the proposed adoption was not endorsed by the Ministry. She recommended that the Ministry should instead be given a chance to look for prospective adoptive parents for the baby in Namibia.

After Magistrate Horn had given the adoption order on August 21, the Registrar of Adoptions, Joyce Nakuta, entered the picture.

Her job was to register the adoption that had been ordered by the Children's Court. This she however did not do.

The adoptive mother finally got lawyer Hannalie Duvenhage involved in the matter. After Duvenhage had written various letters to a lawyer from the Office of the Government Attorney in connection with the matter, she was informed on Monday that the Minister and Nakuta wanted to further consider the matter before taking a decision on the registration of the adoption.

This prompted yesterday's urgent application before Judge Mainga.

By the time the case landed before the Judge, a notice on behalf of the Minister and Nakuta had been filed with the court to indicate that they would after all not be opposing the granting of an order for the registration of the adoption.

Lawyer Christian Mouton, telling Judge Mainga that there was an undertaking that the adoption would be registered, with the result that the case could simply be removed from the court roll, drew this reaction from the Judge: "You never trust people like the second Respondent (the Registrar of Adoptions). You never do that."

The Judge added that there was no reason why Government should be required to pay for a lawyer to represent it in court "because somebody makes some stupid mistake".

He did not remove the case from the roll, but made an order that the adoption had to be registered by no later than 16h00 yesterday and that the registered adoption order and the baby's original birth certificate had to be handed to her new mother.

Charmaine van der Westhuizen, instructed by Duvenhage, represented the adoptive mother during the hearing.