Adoption of Children by Foreigners According to the Family Legislation Applicable on Ukrainian Lands during the 10th–21st Centuries

In the scientific article the author conducts a scientific study of the development of the legal regulation of the adoption of children by foreign citizens according to the legislation that was in force in Ukrainian lands starting from the provisions of canonical and customary law of the Rus period to the norms of the Marriage and Family Code of the Ukrainian SSR of 1969 year. On the basis of the conducted research the author comes to the conclusion that adoption as a family legal institution arose only in the second half of the 18th century, before that it was not regulated by acts of family legislation (with the existence at the same time of the institution of guardianship of orphans and children deprived of parental care). At the same time, the possibility of adoption was foreseen by the norms of canon law, and in customary family practice, adoption was carried out through the reception of a child into the family with the rights of an adoptee in accordance with the family’s own decision regarding an orphan child or a child deprived of parental care, an reception agreement between adoptive parents and natural parents of a child; the relevant legal facts were confirmed both by the adoptive parents themselves in the respective applications and in the wills of these persons, according to which the property belonging to them was transferred to the adopted child. For the first time, the procedure and legal consequences of adoption were regulated by the provisions of «The Laws by Which the Malorussian People are Judged» and later — by the provisions of the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire, the Galician Civil Code and the Austrian Civil Code. These legal acts did not directly provide for the possibility of adoption by foreigners, although they did not prohibit it. The exception was the provisions of the Code of Laws, according to which the conditions for the adoption of a child by foreigners were stipulated — the parents of such a child are unknown, the child must be brought up in the traditions of the Orthodox faith and baptized accordingly. In the future, the adoption of children by foreigners was provided for by the provisions of the 1969 Marriage and Family Code, respectively, provided for the adoption of children by citizens of the USSR (the family codes of the Soviet political entities, adopted in 1919 and 1926, did not contain regulations on the adoption of children by foreigners). At the same time, a special procedure for the adoption of a child by a foreigner was provided for only in 1996. In particular, priority was given to the adoption of a child by a citizen of Ukraine before adoption by a foreigner; the need for a foreigner to be registered for a year, to provide the adopted child with the minimum amount of rights provided for by the family legislation of Ukraine and to supervise the adopted child.