Page:Du Toit v Minister of Welfare.djvu/21

Rh The applicants further argued that their inability to adopt the siblings jointly amounts to a limitation of the first applicant’s right to human dignity in that the challenged provisions of the Child Care Act deny her due recognition and status as a parent of the siblings even though she has played a significant role in their upbringing. More significantly, the first applicant is said to be denied recognition as a parent even though she and the second applicant have lived together as a family and made a consensual and deliberate decision jointly to adopt the siblings and to support and rear them equally as co-parents.

They submitted further that the non-recognition of the first applicant as a parent, in the context of her relationship with the second applicant and their relationship with the siblings, perpetuates the fiction or myth of family homogeneity based on the one mother/one father model. It ignores developments that have taken place in the country, including the adoption of the Constitution.

On the evidence presented in this case, the applicants constitute a stable, loving and happy family. Yet the first applicant’s status as a parent of the siblings cannot be recognised. This failure by the law to recognise the value and worth of the first applicant as a parent to the Rh