Why protect the secret of adoption?
Disclosing confidential information about a child's adoption can cause harm to both the adult and the child. Firstly, this threatens to deteriorate the relationship between the adoptive parent and the adopted child, and secondly, it can cause deep mental trauma to the child.
The adoptive parent, when accepting a child into the family, fully replaces his parent, therefore, as a rule, he tries to ensure that as few people as possible know about this fact.
To ensure that the fact of adoption remains a secret, the legislation provides for a number of measures:
- The court hearing in which the issue of adoption is decided is closed;
- New data can be entered into the child’s documents, including about parents (if the child is 10 years old at the time of adoption, changes in his personal data are made only with his consent);
- There is criminal liability for disclosing secrets.
Disclosure of secrets
Article 19 of the Family Code regulates the issue of disclosing the secret of adoption. All people participating in the process are deprived of the right to provide information about the adopted child and the fact of his origin.
The Constitution of the Russian Federation ensures compliance with all rights and obligations, in particular, the inviolability of life. Moreover, all relevant information relates to family secrets. Disclosure of a secret implies responsibility for this action.
In order to protect and ensure personal integrity, adoptive parents have the right to change not only the first and last name of the minor, but also the place of birth and date of birth. Also, the adoptive parents will be recorded as the baby's real parents.
If a little person, under 3 months old, was taken into the family, then the mother can apply for payment for postnatal leave, while neither guardianship officials nor judicial representatives should divulge the secret. In this case, both officials and individuals are responsible.
Disclosure of a secret about one's origin can lead to mental disorders and increase the time of adaptation in a newly acquired family.
Adoptive parents can spread the secret of a child's adoption at their request, or if the minor is already 10 years old at the time of adoption into the family. Article 124 of the Family Code regulates the protection of the rights and interests of the baby.
People can violate the principles of non-disclosure for reasons caused by both life circumstances and malicious intent. Before disseminating classified information, you need to understand that there may be criminal or legal liability for actions taken. Therefore, before making a rash decision to disclose a secret, it is better to review information about the consequences, according to legal acts.
Corpus delicti
Disclosure of the secret of adoption is a crime against family and minors and is contained in the relevant chapter of the Criminal Code. Let us consider in more detail the composition of this crime.
An object
The object of the crime refers to those direct relationships or interests that are encroached upon by the criminal act. In the event of disclosure of the secret of adoption, the object is the interests of the family, minors, parents, everyone's right to privacy and family secrets. more information about invasion of privacy and the article under which liability arises.
Subject
Additionally,
the crime of disclosing the secret of adoption is not considered committed if this information was received by the authorities, whose duty is also to maintain the secret. For example, a teacher sent a letter to the guardianship and trusteeship authorities, in which he mentioned the fact of adopting a child from his class. In this case, the teacher is not the subject of an offense, because the information was not disclosed to either the child or third parties.
It is possible to hold accountable under this article both persons who are required by law to keep information about adoption secret (special subject), and ordinary citizens who, under various circumstances, learned about adoption (general subject). In any case, the offender must be at least 16 years old at the time the crime was committed.
Special subjects include:
- The judge who participated in the adoption decision;
- Court secretary and assistant judge;
- Any other court employees who, for any reason, could have access to this information (for example, office workers);
- The prosecutor involved in the case;
- Other employees of the prosecutor's office who may have seen the court decision or knew about the hearing;
- Employees of guardianship and trusteeship authorities;
- Civil registry office employees who register the fact of adoption make changes and issue a birth certificate.
Common subjects may include:
- Teacher,
- A kindergarten teacher,
- Relative of the adoptive parents,
- Adoptive family neighbor
- Any other person who in one way or another became aware of information about adoption.
The degree of responsibility for disclosing the secret of adoption among general and special subjects differs on the subjective side.
Subjective side
For actions to be recognized as a crime, they must be committed with direct intent (you can familiarize yourself with the concept of direct intent in criminal law). That is, when disclosing information, the subject must understand that he is revealing a secret against the will of the adoptive parents. If another person, at the request or with the consent of the adoptive parents, provides such information, these actions do not constitute a crime.
In order to bring to criminal liability persons belonging to special subjects, simple intent is sufficient. At the same time, for persons from among the general subject, a special goal is also necessary: selfish or other base motives (jealousy, anger, etc.).
Objective side
The objective side, that is, actions that directly fall under the crime, is, in particular, information about the fact of adoption to other persons or one person (including the adopted person) in any way (during an oral conversation, in writing, publication on social networks, the media and etc.). The important point is that the information must be disseminated to a person who is not required by law or official duties to keep it secret.
Why should you keep a secret?
The Basic Law of the State establishes the right of every person to personal and family secrets (Article 23 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation). When deciding to adopt, parents accept responsibility for the child, including his physical and mental health.
The main reasons for keeping secrets are:
- protection from attempts to remove the baby;
- protecting the family from excessive attention from strangers;
- ensuring psychological comfort;
- protection from interference of biological parents in raising a child.
The advantage of keeping a secret is that minors recognize that they belong to a family. In addition, when inheriting, the child has the same rights along with other close relatives.
Among the disadvantages of the secrecy of the procedure is the fear of adoptive parents that information about adopted children will become available to unauthorized persons.
How to prove a crime has been committed
Another secret
Secret information that also affects the personal life of a citizen and is protected by law includes medical confidentiality. The concept of “violation of medical confidentiality” includes disclosure of a diagnosis (especially significant for a person when they find out his HIV-positive status), dissemination of information about mental health, the results of diagnostics, tests, and prescribed treatment. You can read about responsibility for disclosing medical confidentiality in the article https://lexconsult.online/6340-ponyatie-vrachebnoi-tainy-nakazanie-za-ee-narushenie.
The elements of the crime provided for in Article 155 are formal, that is, immediately after the disclosure of information to any person, the crime is already considered completed, for this there is no need to wait for certain consequences to occur.
Proving the fact of disclosure of secrets in practice is quite a difficult task. The situation is especially difficult with proof of the vile intentions of the offender.
First of all, in order for the disclosure of the secret of adoption to be punished by law, it is necessary to find the person who disseminated the information. The involvement of a specific person in a crime can be proven using the testimony of witnesses (the adopted person or strangers to whom the information was communicated) or documentary evidence:
- Recording a conversation;
- Letter;
- SMS message;
- Post on social networks, etc.
Methods of proving that the secrecy of adoption was violated
In order to bring the perpetrator to justice, it is necessary to provide evidence to the court. For example, testimony of witnesses, documents (threats, receipts, etc.), videos and photos, recordings of telephone conversations, voice messages, printouts of correspondence in instant messengers or mail, testimony of a child who was told the truth.
The difficulty is to identify the subject who told the secret - the child can be told by a person he does not know, and therefore he will not be able to explain to his parents who exactly it was. Naturally, obstacles to identification are created.
It is extremely difficult to bring so-called “well-wishers” to justice, because to constitute a crime it is necessary that they have base motives - revenge, hatred, lust for money, etc. It is difficult to prove such feelings, because they are expressed intangibly, intuitively, at the level of relationships, not documents. It is much easier in the case of extortion, because the criminal needs to maintain contact with the targets of blackmail - call, write, leave threats and have access to the child in order to tell him the truth. In this case, the evidence will be printouts of telephone conversations or correspondence.
An important point: disclosing information about adoption to those persons who are required by profession to keep secrets is not a crime. It is impossible to hold accountable a teacher who, at the request of the court, gave out information about a child, providing information that he is not by blood.
Methods of proving that the secrecy of adoption was violated
Punishment
A court that has determined that the secret of adoption was disclosed by a person contrary to the law may impose the following punishment on the offender:
- Fine of up to 80 thousand rubles;
- Community service up to 360 hours;
- for no more than 1 year;
- Arrest up to 4 months.
In addition to the penalties above, the court may prohibit a person from engaging in certain activities or holding certain positions for 3 years or less.
Questions about maintaining and disclosing the secret of adoption are discussed in the following video
Arbitrage practice
Today, cases of disclosure of adoption secrecy are rare in Russia. Here is one example of such a case.
Since childhood, the girl Anya has been characterized by increased activity and excitability. At school, the baby was recommended to visit a psychologist, to which her parents agreed. After one of the sessions, the girl returned home in shock. From a psychologist she learned that her parents were not her own.
Later, the school specialist admitted that she really revealed the secret of adoption to Anya, since this, in her opinion, should have helped in treatment. In fact, this information harmed the girl; she had to undergo a long rehabilitation, since at that time she was not yet ready for such information.
The court imposed a fine on the perpetrator of the crime and prohibited her from working in her specialty in schools for 3 years. In addition, Anya’s parents were able to demand small moral compensation from the psychologist in court.
On issues of liability for disclosing the secret of adoption, a lawyer will advise you in the comments to the article
