Section 16

Upon an adoption order being made, all rights, duties, obligations and liabilities of the parents or guardians of the infant in relation to the future custody, maintenance and education of the infant, including all rights to appoint a guardian and to consent or give notice of dissent to marriage, shall be extinguished, and all such rights, duties, obligations and liabilities shall vest in and be exercisable by and enforceable against the adopter as if the infant were a child born to the adopter in lawful wedlock; and in respect of the matters aforesaid the infant shall stand to the adopter exclusively in the position of a child born to the adopter in lawful wedlock.

In any case where two spouses are the adopters, the spouses shall in respect of the matters aforesaid, and for the purpose of the jurisdiction of any Court to make orders as to the custody and maintenance of and right of access to children, stand to each other and to the infant in the same relation as they would have stood if they had been the lawful father and mother of the infant and the infant shall stand to them respectively in the same relation as to a lawful father and mother respectively.

For the purpose of any written law relating to marriage for the time being in force in Sabah, an adopter and the person whom he has been authorised to adopt under an adoption order shall be deemed to be within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity;

and the provisions of this subsection shall continue to have effect notwithstanding that some person other than the adopter is authorised by a subsequent order to adopt the same infant.

Intestacies, wills and settlements.