Could Be Good News

The following is from the JCICS site from Friday, December 14. It would be great if the Guatemalan congress adopts this. Even greater if I get into PGN next week.

During the week of December 3rd, Joint Council strongly advocated with key stakeholders for a positive resolution to the grandfather clause (Article 56 of Decree 77-2007). As part of our call to both the Guatemalan administration and Congress to clearly define a ‘grandfathered case’, Joint Council submitted a definition to the Guatemalan Congress, the Berger administration and the U.S. Department of State. In addition, we educated members of the U.S. Congress on this critical issue.

As part of our advocacy, Joint Council fully supports the following definition and process.

A case would be eligible for the grandfather status provided that by December 31st 2007 the case had:
a Power of Attorney (POA),
the POA was registered with the Supreme Court,
the Acta de Requerimiento had been issued
The case would be officially grandfathered upon its registration with the Central Authority during a 30 day period beginning December 31, 2007. The 30 day period represents 30 business days.
Cases already “in” PGN (cases where an Aviso has been issued) would be considered to be automatically registered with the Central Authority thereby negating the need for a separate and additional act of registration.
Recognizing that PGN is registered with The Hague as a competent authority, all eligible cases would be registered with the Central Authority via the PGN.
Through our ongoing dialogue with the Guatemalan government and the U.S. Department of State (DOS), it is our understanding that the key stakeholders including DOS are not moving towards a definition that would limit the grandfathered cases to only those cases that are “in” PGN by December 30, 2007 (a full and complete file submitted to PGN for review). There appears to be a growing agreement, including a draft legal opinion by PGN, with the definition outlined by Joint Council. While Joint Council is cautiously optimistic that this type of a grandfather definition will be officially sanctioned, we also believe that we must remain diligent in our review, assessment and advocacy.

Joint Council does remain concerned that the recent elections have left a void in leadership within the Guatemalan government. As a result, obtaining a clear ruling from a competent authority is increasingly difficult. We also have concerns as to the registering of cases with the Central Authority, given that no such authority will exist until sometime in mid-January, at the earliest.

Please know that Joint Council, as previously stated, will remain diligent in its pursuit of every child’s right to a permanent, safe and loving family. We are intimately involved in the process in Guatemala and are committed to ensuring that all children who have been referred to a family will be able to have their adoption completed. As we see the Guatemala 5000 through to a successful completion, Joint Council will continue its engagement with a goal of seeing the functional implementation of the new adoption law.