Section 73: Miscellaneous
Section 73 provides that the general principle of section 66 (that an adopted person is to be treated as if he or she had been born as the child of the adopter or adopters) is not to apply for the purposes of Articles 68 and 69 of the Sexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 2008 (sex with an adult relative), marriages or civil partnerships within prohibited degrees of relationship or to incest and, for these purposes, an adopted person remains part of his natural family. The only exception is that an adopted person cannot marry or form a civil partnership with their adoptive parent, as this falls within the prohibited degrees of relationship in Article 18 of the Family Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 1984 or Schedule 12 to the Civil Partnership Act 2004. Otherwise there are no restrictions on marriage or civil partnership within an adoptive family.
Subsection (3) lists other enactments which deal with questions of nationality and immigration, and to which the general principle of section 66 is also not to apply.
