Rule 111.Termination of parental rights and adoption

Private, and anonymous. Petitions for termination of parental rights and for adoption, and the proceedings on them, follow these rules so far as they apply and the requirements of the governing statutes. All such matters are heard privately, and the identity of the parties is not disclosed in the court's published opinion unless the court determines otherwise for good cause shown.

These are the most consequential cases this court decides. A published opinion serves the law; naming the family in it serves nobody, and the child named would carry it for life. Rule 77 makes the same choice for captions in sensitive matters, and Rule 90.1 closes the file.

Foreign adoptions. Where the original birth certificate or any other pertinent foreign document is in another language, the filing must be accompanied by a translation into English, and the translation must carry a certification that it is true and correct. A court cannot make a permanent decision about a child on documents it cannot read, and certification puts a name behind the translation.

The mother's name. In a termination case where notice to the father must be given by publication and the mother has consented to the termination, her name is left out of the publication. The notice must instead say that the father can obtain her name by contacting the Family Court in the county where the action was filed.

That provision solves a real conflict in a few lines. Publication notice is public by definition, and printing the name of a woman who has consented to a termination — often a woman with reason to fear the man being notified — would expose her to the world to reach one person. The father still gets the information; he has to ask the court for it.