In this Act, “authorised court”, as respects an application for an order relating to a child, shall be construed as follows.
Subject to subsections (4) to (6), if the child is in England or Wales when the application is made, the following are authorised courts—
(a) the High Court;
(b) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(c) any other county court prescribed by Family Procedure Rulesmade under section 75 of the County Courts Act 1984
(d) a magistrates’ court within whose area the child is, and, in the case of an application for an order freeing the child for adoption, a magistrates’ court within whose area a parent or guardian of the child is.
If, in the case of an application for an adoption order or for an order freeing a child for adoption, the child is not in Great Britain when the application is made, the High Court is the authorised court.
In the case of an application for a Convention adoption order, paragraph (d) of subsection (2) does not apply.
Subsection (2) does not apply in the case of an application under section 29 but for the purposes of such an application the following are authorised courts—
(a) if there is pending in respect of the child an application for an adoption order or an order freeing him for adoption, the court in which that application is pending;
(b) if paragraph (a) does not apply and there is no application for an order under i section 12 or 18 of the Adoption (Scotland) Act 1978; or ii Article 12, 17 or 18 of the Adoption (Northern Ireland) Order 1987 , the High Court, the county court within whose district the applicant lives and the magistrates’ court within whose area the applicant lives.
In the case of an order under section 55, paragraph (d) of subsection (2) does not apply.
Any court to which the proceedings on an application are transferred under any enactment is, as regards the transferred proceedings, an authorised court if it is not an authorised court under the preceding provisions of this section.