MADONNA has finally won her drawn-out battle to adopt David Banda, after a Malawian judge approved her application to make the toddler her son. The ruling at Malawi’s High Court on May 28 has put an end to a 20-month-long saga which began in October 2006, when Madonna and her director husband Guy Ritchie brought Banda back to the U.K. from a Malawian orphanage. At the time, the tot was just 13 months old.

And the couple is delighted with the happy news.

Madonna’s lawyer Alan Chinula says, “We are very happy with what the judge has ruled. It is a positive and beautiful judgment that will have an impact on Malawi’s adoption laws. Finally the court has granted Madonna full adoption rights of the boy, it’s a long judgement but I am quite happy with it.”

Madonna’s adoption of Banda has been highly controversial, attracting accusations the impoverished nation’s government had bypassed laws that ban nonresidents from adopting children in Malawi.