JERSEY Law and Practice Contributed by: Lauren Glynn, Victoria Cure and Tara Lee, Carey Olsen
In LS v NS 2007 JLR N [37], the Royal Court confirmed the test above and noted that the welfare of the child was paramount. It was further noted that parental responsibility confers an important status on fathers, and the order should usually be granted unless clearly contrary to the child’s welfare. 1.4 Requirements for Non-Genetic Parents A non-genetic parent can obtain parental responsibil - ity in the following ways. • Adoption – pursuant to the Adoption (Jersey) Law 1961, an adoptive parent automatically acquires parental responsibility by the making of an adop - tion order. • Step-parents – a step-parent does not acquire parental responsibility automatically by marrying, or entering into a civil partnership with, a child’s parent. A step-parent who is married to, or in a civil partnership with, the child’s parent, may acquire parental responsibility for their step-child(ren) by entering into a parental responsibility agreement, providing each parent with parental responsibility (or if any other person has parental responsibility for the child, all of those people) consent to the arrangement. The court may, on an application by a step-parent, order that the step-parent is to have parental responsibility for the child. Same-sex female parents – see 1.6 Same-Sex Relationships . • Surrogacy – the law changed significantly in November 2025 when the Children and Civil Status (Amendments) (Jersey) Law 2024 came into force introducing a Jersey parental order regime for sur - rogacy. A mother is defined in Article 1 (1) of the CJL 2002 as “the woman who gives birth to the child”. Accordingly, the surrogate mother is the child’s legal mother at birth, regardless of genet - ics. A surrogate mother is defined in Article 1B(2) of the CJL 2002 as a woman who is pregnant under an arrangement (“a surrogacy arrangement”) made before the woman becomes pregnant and with a view to a child born of the pregnancy, under the arrangement, being handed over to, and parental responsibility being met (so far as practicable) by, another person. If the surrogate is married, or in a civil partnership, her spouse or civil partner also has parental responsibility, unless it can be shown that they did not consent to the arrangement.
(a) The intended parents can apply to the court for a parental order, which extinguishes the legal parenthood of the surrogate (and her partner) and confers it on them. Parental orders may be made in favour of either a sole applicant or joint applicants. A parental order can only be made if: (i) the child was borne by a woman who is not one of the applicants for the parental order as a result of placing in her of an embryo or sperm and eggs, or of artificial insemination (whether in a course of rel - evant fertility treatment or otherwise); (ii) the child’s birth is registered in Jersey; (iii) the applicant’s gametes or, in the case of a joint application, the gametes of at least one of the applicants, were used in the child’s conception; (iv) the application for the order is made not later than six months after the child’s birth; (v) the applicant is at least 18 years old, or, in the case of a joint application, both ap - plicants are at least 18 years old when the parental order is made; (vi) the child’s home is the same as the ap - plicant’s and the applicant, or, in the case of a joint application, at least one of the applicants is domiciled in Jersey; (vii) no other parental order has been made in relation to the child; and (viii) in the case of a joint application, at the time the application is made, the appli - cants must be spouses or civil partners of each other or in an enduring relationship with each other. (b) Before making a parental order, the court must be satisfied that the surrogate mother, together with any partner who consented to her clinical treatment, freely and unconditionally consented to the making of the order with full understand - ing of what is involved. Consent of the surro - gate mother is ineffective if given in the first six weeks after the birth of the child. (c) Jersey has adopted an altruistic surrogacy model. The court must be satisfied that no money or other benefit (other than for expenses reasonably incurred) has been given or re - ceived by the surrogate mother.
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