Prawo właściwe dla przysposobienia według polsko-ukraińskiej umowy o pomocy prawnej
The Law Applicable to Adoption according to the Polish-Ukrainian Agreement on Legal Assistance

Summary/Abstract: The subject of the study is the analysis of the conflict of law rules contained in Article 30 of the Agreement between the Republic of Poland and Ukraine on legal assistance and legal relations in civil and criminal matters, made in Kiev on May 24, 1993 (Journal of Laws of 1994, No. 96, item 465) determining the jurisdiction and applicable law for establishing, amending, terminating and canceling the adoption. Before proceeding with this analysis, some differences in the substantive and procedural/technical rules relating to adoption in Polish and Ukrainian law are pointed out. Furthermore, it is emphasized that under Article 30 of the Agreement the institution of renvoi plays no part. In the event of multiple Polish and Ukrainian citizenship, the decisive factor becomes the “effective” citizenship. Article 30, on the other hand, offers no solution for stateless persons. Next, the jurisdiction designated by Article 30 sec. 5 sentence 1 of the Agreement (dealing with matters of adoption, as well as the amendment, termination or annulment of the adoption) is analyzed. Subsequently, the author takes up the questions relating to determination of the law applicable to adoption by one person and the joint adoption by spouses. The author contends that the law applicable to the adoption is fixed and so it is not subject to changes. The article assumes that the effects of a full adoption “transform” — on the conflict-of-laws level — into relations between parents and children, and the effects of a partial adoption are governed by the law applicable to the establishment of adoption. The article shows that the law applicable to its establishment of the adoption is applicable also to the amendment, termination and annulment of adoption. The author further submits that in theory the public policy clause may be used under the Polish-Ukrainian Agreement, but in practice this should not occur too often because there are no provisions of the Ukrainian adoption law, the application of which would result in consequences contrary to the fundamental principles of the Polish legal order.

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