Some Questions You Can Expect from the Judges

These are some of the questions you can expect to be asked during the court appearance.  It is advised that each family answer all the questions clearly and honestly. At the end of the court appearance, the judge will ask if the family has any comments for the Court.  This is when you can speak respectfully and indicate that you are completely prepared and ready to have your child be placed with your family as soon as possible.

These are some sample questions, and the judges are not going to ask you all the questions listed, but will vary from judge to judge.  Often it is more of a spontaneous questions and answers that gets a dialogue going to enable the judges to get to know you better.  So this list of questions does not cover all the questions.

·         Are you (full name of each adoptive parent)?

·         Where do you live?

·         When did you arrive in Korea?

·         When are you leaving Korea?

·         Why did you decide to adopt from Korea?

·         How many times have you met with the child?

·         How was the meeting with your child?

·         How did you react when you saw the child?

·         What did you think of the child?

·         What challenges do you think you might have with the child/due to a trans-racial adoption?

·         What training have you received in regards to cultural issues and post-adoptively searching for parents?

·         What time in his/her life do you think he/she will deal with these post-adoptive search questions?

·         How do the children already in your home feel about adopting a child from Korea?

·         Do you still want to adopt the child after seeing the child?

·         When did you start to plan this adoption?

·         Are you going to allow religious freedom for your adopted child?

·         (To siblings in Court), How do you feel about your new sibling?

·         What are your thoughts about raising a child of a different culture?

·         Are you going to raise the adopted child the same way you are raising your other children in the home?

·         What is your job? Could you give more a specific explanation about your job?

·         What is your annual income?

·         (If both of parents are working) what is your parenting plan after going back home with the child?

·         (For families with a few children) could you specify your financial plans to parent your children?

·         (If the family has a young child in care), why do you want to adopt a child even though you are already raising a child?

·         Have there been any changes since your original home study? (The answer would be that there have been no changes since the last update.)

·         What were the best part /the most interesting part in the adoption education and training?

·         (For parent/parents being on medication), what medication are you taking? Since when have you taken that medication? What is your current condition with that medication?

·         What type of visa do you want to be issued for your child? (IR3/IR4..the answer should be IR3)

·         With the final court approval, you will become the only parents to the child as the relationship between the child and the birth parents will be cut and you cannot reverse this court approval. Are you fully aware of this?

·         Do you have any questions or statement for the Court?

When the judges were recently asked to respond to the necessity for the Court appearance, they explained that even though they are fully aware that the applicants have already been assessed to be eligible as adoptive parents per the pertinent laws in their respective countries, it is very difficult for the Korean judges to determine the suitability of the adoptive parents based on documents alone.

Just recently, there was a ruling in a domestic adoption case, where a parent had an incident of a past drunken behavior that resulted in his arrest many years ago.  A judge told him to “Do your best to raise the children you already have.” And he declined to approve the adoption. 

Is there an advantage of the One Trip Option versus the Two-Trip Option? It may be cheaper and easier on your time if you take a two trip option.  Because on the second trip only one person is required to go back to pick up the child. This option makes most sense if you have other children at home to consider, and limited in time to travel.

To date, it has been observed that the final adjudication is issued by the Court in a timelier manner for families who have indicated to the Court that they are staying in Korea for the duration of the process. The Court asks for a specific return date and for families who have indicated this.

The Final Adjudication has been issued in enough time for these families to leave according to plan. Families' stays have ranged from 4 - 6 weeks.