Guatemala Human Rights Organization asks for cessation of international adoptions

(Posted with permission from Caroline Tiffin, Focus On Adoption).

Yesterday, the Procurador de Derechos Humanos (director of the Human
Rights department of the government), Sergio Morales, filed an amparo
with the Constitutional Court, asking it to require Congress to pass a
law to regulate international adoptions, within a period of 30 days, and
"for the moment", asking to suspend international adoption proceedings.

With the caveat, as always, that I have been a constitutional lawyer for
15 years but not one in Guatemala! - it appears the Court has no power
to take this action and certainly not to require Congress to pass any
law.

I spoke just a few moments ago with one of our attorneys in Guatemala,
to ask her analysis of this. She agrees that the Court has no such
power, and that in any event, the justices of the court who will
consider this, are the same who found unconstitutional Guatemala's
accession to the Hague Convention on international adoption. She also
stated, as we have already heard, that any new adoption law would not be
retroactive to cases already pending.
In the Prensa Libre article, Morales is quoted as making reference to
the PGN's statement of a few weeks ago that, in one ten-day period, it
processed 1,500 adoption cases, which itself appears to be false. He
also states that he is going to appeal to the Interamerican Commission
on Human Rights, to bring pressure upon Guatemala to cease international
adoptions. And, he makes reference to the recent and still-pending
situation of the Guatemalan children discovered in a "crib house" in
Costa Rica.

In sum, it appears this is another action initiated as a result of the
immense pressure being brought in Guatemala by UNICEF and other
similarly interested parties.

Hannah Wallace is still in Guatemala and I have a message out to her to
ask her to pass along any more information she may be able to glean "on
the ground" in Guatemala.

There is no need for panic; I just wanted to pass along this information
as it will surely become available elsewhere.

As I am just home from Guatemala and immersed in communicating with my
clients about the status of their cases, I won't have time to respond to
private emails about this but will try to respond to any posts to the
list.

There is an article today in Prensa Libre about the above; you can read
it online at www.prensalibre.com - then click on "Nacional" in the left
hand box and this is the lead story on that page.

Caroline Tiffin
Attorney at Law
Palmetto Hope International Adoption
www.palmetto-adopt.com