ADA News (English)

Prensa Libre, July 9, 2008
TWO CHILDREN PLACED FOR ADOPTIONS UNDER NEW LEGAL SYSTEM

The National Council for Adoptions placed the first two children under the new adoption law of 2007, that tries to clean up an adoption industry infested with irregularities.

The first two infants placed are Jose, one year and seven months old, and Sandra, seven months old.

“We are giving priority to the domestic adoptions; these are the two first cases”, explained to the AP the coordinator of the multidisciplinary team of the National Council of Adoptions (CAN), Jaime Tecu.

The two minors were ruled abandoned by a judge who later found them a home with a Guatemalan family.

Tecu indicated that the international adoptions will not be rejected. “In fact, within the next days we will place an special needs child with an American couple”, he added.

The authorities did nor disclose the names of the children and of their parents to guarantee their private space.
The CAN has 58 cases of children who can be legally adopted and 89 adoption applications from couples. Only ten applications have been approved by the CNA.

In 2007 there were more than four thousand seven hundred adoptions under a system that allowed irregularities. With the new Adoption Law it is expected transparency in the processes.

Prensa Libre, July 11, 2008.

PP SUMMONS COUNCIL OF ADOPTIONS
By Sandra Valdez

The members of the CNA must go back to Congress on July 21st., bringing with them, already revoked, the act where Elizabeth De Larios was appointed president.

In a summons that the Patriot Party (PP) made to the members of the National Council of Adoptions (CNA) it was clear that such entity has not complied with all the deadlines that the Adoptions Law establishes, and has done actions that the law does not authorize them to do, as it is to create a board of directors.

According to Anabella de Leon, congresswoman of the PP, De Larios appointed herself as president of the CNA, which allows her to collect Q2,500.00 for each of the three weekly meetings, added to monthly Q20,000.00 for representative expenses.

For that reason, the PP congresswoman indicated that they summoned De Larios as well as Concha Barrientos and Rudy Soto, the three members of the CNA, to present to them, on July 21st., already revoked, the act number 2 of last February 8th., where the board of directors was created and De Larios was appointed as president for four years.

If they fail to comply, De Leon warned that she will request that De Larios be interrogated by the whole Congress.

Since both press releases are self explanatory, there is no need to add anything about the transparency and unquestionable honesty of the members of the CNA.

B. UPDATE ABOUT THE AMPAROS

The ruling on the first amparo is due any day now. It was filed by more than 105 notaries on January 30th. 2008, against the National Council of Adoptions, to obtain a ruling stating that the registration form of the CNA was illegal as it supplied unnecessary private information that violated the privacy of the birth mothers, the children and the adoptive families, and requesting the amparo court to state the legal limits of the CNa, that prevent such entity from interfering in any way in the grandfathered cases.

The second amparo was filed by the director of Association Primavera (a private entity that sponsors a temporary home for children in Guatemala City and another in Escuintla), against the PGN for snatching a girl who was already ruled abandoned by the Escuintla judge of Childhood and Adolescence; also for delaying the adoptions of the children at Primavera by requiring the birthmother interviews, which have no legal grounds, and therefore should not be a requirement to approve the adoptions It is in the final stage.

The Third amparo is against the PGN, filed also by the director of Primavera, for delaying the cases of the children at Primavera by requiring the birthmother interviews, because the period to do them, even if it were true that they had the right to do them according to article 57 of the Adoptions Law, it is long expired, as the period to supposedly to do them was thirty days after the law became effective and therefore, to state the obligation of the PGN to release without further delay, all the files of the children at Primavera, who were submitted for the approval of the PGN.

The Fourth Amparo was also filed by the director of Primavera against the PGN for holding up the file - since September last year - of a child at Primavera who needs a cornea transplant and who was ruled abandoned by the Mixco court last year, with the blessings of the PGN. Since its reception by the PGN, the case has been suspended for no reason while the child looses the sight of her right eye.

There are other amparos too, filed by birthmothers whose children were taken at the interviews at the PGN, that are being processed.

According to the statements of Jaime Tecu, over one thousand cases are still missing interviews.

The amparos are necessary because the PGN is not willing to approve the grandfathered adoptions, and are adding requirements that are not in the law and using any excuse, as it is a typo in a name, to order that such adoption must be submitted to a judge, when they very well know that no judge would touch an adoption case, after the vicious attack against the judge Maria del Carmen Berduo, spearheaded by Josefina Arellano, the infamous chief of the section of minors of the PGN who resigned last year.

ADA and some lawyers have filed constitutional challenges against the Adoptions Law that are pending before the Constitutional Court.

We would not be lawyers if we did not trust that the legal system has to restore the order that has been misused by the current authorities, who right now are keeping the children being adopted, from joining their forever families and in some cases, to get the medical attention that they so badly need.