Article on Adoption Law Project

The article on thestatus of the Ortega law proposal appeared in the Nov 24, 2005 edition of Siglo XXI. Click Here to read the article in Spanish.

This article, if correct, seems to indicate that the Ortega Law is basically not going anywhere, but that the forces for major reform are from gone. Of great interest to me is the idea that a new proposal could come forth next year that would place churches and humanitarian organizations in charge of protecting children's rights and being invovled in referals.

Parties confronted by designation of leading entity

DISSENSIONS COOL ADOPTION LAW

Legislative parties differ about if the PGN, CSJ (Supreme Court of Justice) or the churches must manage the delivery processes of the children.

Disagreements regarding the entity that should lead the adoption processes have divided the main legislative parties, to the point that the proceedings for the preliminary plan that seeks the delivery of children have been cooled and almost discarded for the rest of the year.

While some parliamentary groups plead that the Attorney General’s Office is the most suitable entity to be in charge of controlling and authorizing adoptions, other consider that these faculties must be under the charge of the Supreme Court of Justice or of the churches (any denomination).

Those against the PGN assure that delegating these proceedings to them would be unconstitutional, since, as established in Article 252 of the Constitution, the PGN is in charge of the advise and consultation of the state organs and entities.

In an optimistic way, Jorge Luis Ortega, president of the Minor and Family Commission, who issued a decision favoring the preliminary plan, explains that they are looking for the agreements to define the responsible entity for the proceedings.

Proposal without a majority

The proposed law that is under discussion in the Congress, which is in its second debate and suggests that the PGN must be in charge, does not have the endorsement of the Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE), Partido Unionista (PU), or the Integrationist Party (these three are political parties in Guatemala).

The mentioned preliminary plan was presented to the Congress by the Presidency of the Republic, suggested by the First Lady, Wendy de Berger.

Edgar Rodriguez, chief of the UNE party, discards the support of his party to the initiative, claiming that behind it there is an international entity, who would be willing to even give money to invest in the adoption processes.

Fatima de Polo, from the Communication Department of the First Lady’s office, states that she is not able to give any declarations based in just comments. “¡If he has documents supporting this, let him show them¡¨, she states, alluding the parliamentary.

The rejection of the unionists in availing the project is resumed by Pablo Duarte, chief of this party, as follows: “¡We won’t give our vote to a law that avoids adoptions¡¨.

According to Duarte, the intention is to harden the procedures in the delivery of the children, even though, to his judgment, the State should limit itself to procure the better controls of the procedures.

UNE and PU share the idea of continuing the discussion of the reforms to the Civil and Civil Procedures Code, where a register assigned to the Supreme Court of Justice is created as a leading entity.

“¡The Supreme Court of Justice would give more credibility to the international community, since it would be a less corruptible entity¡¨, states Carlos Godoy Florian, and integrationist congressman, who adds to the UNE and PU postures.

Furthermore, Carlos Velasquez, vice-president of the Minor Commission and a congressman from the FRG party, analyzes the possibility of presenting in January a position regarding that the institutions with humanitarian vocation (churches), no matter which denomination, would be responsible for these processes.