The Ministry of the Interior (MOI) plans to cooperate with the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) for an amendment to the Civil Code to relax the current strict regulations on adoption.
The MOI's decision came after a father Juan Chih-chung (阮志忠) threatened to commit suicide with his biological daughter by jumping from a pedestrian overpass early this month in Taipei out of his frustration in trying to legally adopt her.
Under Taiwanese law, Juan's biological daughter is not his legal daughter because she was born while her mother was married to another man. Her legal father is her mother's husband and because this legal definition is extant, Juan is blocked from adopting her as his daughter. Only the mother of Juan's daughter or the mother's husband would have been allowed to bring into question the parenthood of the girl and would have been required to do so within a year of realizing the true parenthood of the girl.
Juan's frustration stems from this legal snare as the mother of his daughter disappeared last year. Juan has been left with no legal recourse to adopt his daughter in the absence of the mother.
"As society develops, there have been more and more children born out of wedlock, which has led us to consider revising the law," said Hsieh Ai-ling (謝愛齡), director of the Population Administration Department (戶政司) under the ministry.
Under the ministry of the interior's proposal, the period of time for refuting the legal relationship would be longer than one year and entitles people who were not married to the mother at the time of the child's birth to file an application.
In response to the MOI's comment, officials from the justice ministry said that relaxing the regulations has been on their agenda as well. Chong Rui-lan (鍾瑞蘭), MOJ's official working on the amendment, said that her department is seeking attempts to extend the current one-year deadline to two years and also to allow children over 22 years of age who believe they were born out of wedlock to file an application to refute their blood relationship with their legal fathers.
"How to entitle individuals not married to the mother to file applications to refute the blood relationship would require sophisticated discussion and design," Chong said.
Chong explained that this could trap families in unnecessary legal battles when a man falsely claims he is the biological father.
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