According to statistics, Germany has a great many childless couples who would like to adopt a child. More than ten thousand families are on the waiting list, willing to adopt a foreign child, even though no more than 5,000 children are admitted for adoption into Germany each year, and the conditions for adoption are fairly strict. For instance, at least one spouse must be no younger than 25, and the age gap between the adoptive parent and the child may not exceed 40 years. The adoptive parent must have income sufficient to support both their own family and the adopted child, as well as adequate housing. Adopting a child into a family that already has children of its own is not prohibited in Germany, provided it does not disadvantage the biological children. When German citizens adopt a foreign child, the authorities raise no obstacles to that child settling in Germany. It becomes all the more puzzling, then, when those same German authorities stand in the way of reuniting German citizens with the children of their foreign spouses.
That is exactly what happened to our clients. Elena lived in Ukraine. Her husband had died, leaving her alone with a son. Her son was already fairly grown when Elena met Heinrich — her future husband. Heinrich was a German citizen who lived permanently in Germany and visited Ukraine to see relatives. After registering their marriage in Ukraine, the couple applied for family reunification (German: Familienzusammenführung). The application was reviewed and approved. Elena moved to Germany to join her husband permanently. Her son stayed behind in Ukraine with his grandmother. Elena and Heinrich, however, traveled to Ukraine frequently, since the grandmother needed care and the son needed attention.
It should be said that the two men quickly hit it off and became friends. The boy had grown up without a father and had always missed male attention, so he was immediately drawn to Heinrich. Heinrich felt the same way about him. After a while, Heinrich himself suggested adopting Elena's son — both Elena and the boy agreed. They gathered all the necessary documents and filed an adoption petition with a court in Ukraine. Once they had the court's decision, they again gathered documents and submitted them to the German Embassy in Ukraine, petitioning for the father to be reunited with his adopted child — and were refused. They submitted the documents to the German Embassy a second time, this time petitioning for the son to be reunited with his mother, who was lawfully and permanently resident in Germany — and were refused again.
Having lost all hope of a favorable decision, Elena and Heinrich came to our law firm. Their case was complicated by the fact that the boy had already turned 18. Once we had the clients' documents, we challenged the German Embassy's refusals in court. As noted above, a favorable decision on family reunification requires the applicant to have income sufficient to support both their own family and the adopted child. Heinrich had a job, but his income did not allow him to be entirely independent of state support. The court, having carefully reviewed the documents we submitted, dismissed our complaint, citing a shortfall of... 43 euros in what it considered a sufficient income for Heinrich! In our appeal, we cited a recent decision of the German Federal Court, which had held that where an employed citizen does not have sufficient funds of their own and receives state assistance, all income they receive is treated as their own funds and counted as total income. The court, however, found our argument insufficient and refused us again.
Alongside the first court proceeding, we also filed a petition asking the court to recognize the Ukrainian court's adoption decision — a critical step, because if the Ukrainian court's decision were recognized as valid in Germany, there would be no need for any further proceedings: the child would automatically acquire German citizenship through the adoptive parent, along with the right to enter and reside in Germany. Here, too, the court kept demanding more and more documents to confirm that the Ukrainian court's decision had not been a mere formality. Eventually, the court declared that the adoptive parent and the adopted child had to tell the court about their relationship themselves. Heinrich was summoned to appear in person before the court in Berlin to give testimony. Beforehand, he came to our law firm, and we prepared him for the conversation with the judge. The boy was to be interviewed in Ukraine. The court, however, stated that conducting the interview of the adopted person was outside its competence, and it forwarded a judicial request to the agency responsible for such matters. It should be noted that this procedure is not free of charge, and Heinrich had to pay 600 euros simply for the German mission in Ukraine to conduct a telephone interview with the boy. The officials sent us the transcript of the interview (thankfully!). The transcript recorded the boy's answers as the official had understood them (or chosen to understand them) — and it contained numerous inconsistencies and distortions. We corrected the transcript and submitted it to the court along with our own supporting arguments. The court was finally satisfied with the information obtained. But that was still not the end of it. All the documents were forwarded by the court to the Federal Office of Justice for recognition of the Ukrainian court's adoption decision as compliant with German law. The processing time at the Federal Office of Justice runs from 6 to 8 weeks. Neither we nor our clients were happy with that timeline, so we periodically called the office and asked them to speed up the review, pointing out that the review process by German officials had already dragged on far too long. We got the result we wanted, and the office issued its favorable decision fairly quickly. We forwarded all the documents to the court once more, and the court ruled in our clients' favor: the Ukrainian court's decision was recognized as valid in Germany, meaning the boy was recognized as a German citizen and could be reunited with his family without hindrance. As soon as she had the court's decision in hand, Elena flew to Ukraine the very next day, where, within a single day, her son received a German passport and a reunification permit.
To avoid major difficulties when reuniting children with a mother who has permanently relocated to another country, we naturally advise first completing the adoption of the child by the foreign (future) husband. But bear in mind that German officials very rarely "give in quickly," and reunification of a foreign spouse's children with the adoptive parent rarely goes smoothly — at least not without professional help.
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