Today's Prensa Libre - CNA announcement

The National Council of Adoptions informs:

To the notaries who have submitted their files of petition of adoptions before December 31st. 2007, they must register them at the offices of the National Council of Adoptions, temporarily located at the Secretaria de Bienestar Social de la Presidencia, on 32 street 9-34 zone 11, Colonia Las Charcas until Tuesday February 12th., 2008, inclusive. Will be open during the weekend in an schedule from 9 in the morning to 16 hours.

To the notaries who submitted their files to the members of the former Council, they must present their copy at the offices of the Secretaria de Bienstar social during the before mentioned schedule so they can get assigned a registration number.

Attentively,

National Council of Adoptions, Guatemala, February 8th., 2008.

The public relations person of the Supreme Court told the media that regarding the amparo filed by the lawyers, the suspension of the obligation to fill out a four pages form was not granted, which means that they will keep requiring all the information about the child, the birthmother and the adoptive parents, a picture of the child and his prints of hands and feet. That also means that the new members of the CAN cannot argue later that because the former members were already fired when they authorized the form, did not have the right to establish such registration form. The Amparo court has validated the four page form and by filing the registration form at the new location or presenting the copy of the registration, each case will be given a registration number that will prove to the PGN that the case has already been registered.

Today's Information from ADA

A few weeks after the Adoptions Law became effective, the Central Authority cannot take off and adoptions are not going anywhere.

Since there is no law to support the legality of the form that requires personal and confidential information of all the interested parties in the adoption, as well as the verification of the same by the Central Authority, it is doubtful that the registration of the adoptions with the weekly changing form, is legal.

The Central Authority does not have money to work, because the ten million quetzals that are needed to start working, will not be released until the conflict of the appointments of the members of the board of directors is settled.

The PGN is rejecting as many cases as possible, and refuses to accept any cases, even those that were previously rejected and need to be resubmitted, until proof of registration with the Central Authority is included.

ALL CASES IN PROCESS, regardless of their status, even those that are already finished and only pending recording at the Civil Registry, must be registered with the Central Authority before February 12, 2008 in order to be grandfathered. If the case is not registered with the CA, the PGN will not approve it. The fact that the CA is refusing to register the cases, because to offer to give the proof of registration later and not doing it, is the same as not registering it.

Right now, not a single adoption case has been registered by the Central Authority.Time is passing by and if by February 12th. that situation has not been solved, the situation of all the adoptions in process will be at the mercy of the Central Authority, because they will have total control of the processes. The adoption lawyers will have to keep supporting the children, but whether the children would go to the people who have been waiting for them is still unclear.

ADA is poised to file an amparo to get a ruling stating that the CA must proceed without delay to register the in process cases and to stop asking for information that is simply none of their business.

If you wish to read the article in full:
http://www.adaguatemala.org/English/news/

New pictures: Top McCaule 6 months, Bottom McKelle 8 months