Outrage as Brazil Supreme Court blocks Sean Goldman’s return
(HMG) – I had my fingers crossed but with the history of the Brazilian courts I knew this probably happen. A Brazilian Supreme Court judge blocked the return to the United States of 9-year-old Sean Goldman, at the center of a long running international custody dispute on Thursday, saying the boy’s own will must be taken into account. The day before a panel of three Brazilian judges ruled that New Jersey dad David Goldman should get his son Sean back, and must be handed over to him at the U.S. Consulate in Rio de Janeiro within 48 hours. This has been a long running saga that has seen Goldman put through 5-years of hell trying to get Sean back. The decision by the federal appeals court in Rio de Janeiro upheld a Brazilian federal judge’s earlier ruling.
But once again another roadblock has been thrown out to stop this from happening as Brazil once again defies the Hague Abduction Convention aimed a curbing cases of child abduction by parents in this case. The ruling is total stupidity. After this miscarriage of justice for five years Sean hardly knows his father now and undoubtedly the abducting party’s family has not been kind to his memory. The boy needs to go back to his father David who understands that Sean will need counseling to deal with what has happened.
Hi,
Although I agree that Mr. David Goldman should be granted the right of getting back his son, I believe it would be best for the boy not to be sent immediately to the US, afterall he spent most of his life in Brazil and that would be a huge change for a 9 year old kid. This last decision made by judge Marco Aurelio Mello was based in the fact that, in a case such as this, the child does have the right to be listened. And that’s according to the Hague Abduction Convention as well. I don’t think this is a battle between two countries, like it’s been portrayed by most of the American media. There’s much more about Mr. David Goldman that we don’t know.
Allyson, I strongly disagree with your last insinuation trying to cast some aspersions on the father. David was clearly wronged in this matter if you care to look at the facts objectively, and is not on trial. His late wife may have hidden her desire to leave him but what she did violated international law and Brazil’s legal system has been consistently dodgey in handling this case.
To learn how you can help Sean Goldman finally return home, visit http://www.bringseanhome.org/help.html and contact Brazilian and US representatives today to ask for their urgent assistance.
Today someone posted a comment on my Blog Updates in Michigan Family Law as "Thinklogically": He/she (A/K/A "Anonymous") said that Sean's kidnapping was not an "abduction". "Thinklogically" stated the facts incorrectly. "Thinklogically" slanted the "factoids" to the point of view of the current kidnapper, Lins e Silva, Sean's Brazilian stepfather. Next, "Thinklogically" opined that it could not possibly be in a child's best interest to go live in a country he doesn't remember, with a father he's seen twice, (oh, forget those early years when he lived with his father and mother in New Jersey), and leave his home, his sister, and the only family he knows? "Thinklogically" said, "People so often forget the perspective of the child while fighting so hard to establish an adult person's "rights" to that child."Well, OK. Those who want a child . . . those unable to have a child . . . under the logic of "Thinklogically", can just go down to the local supermarket, pluck an infant out of a shopping cart, hide the infant for years and then . . . then when the biological parent shows up to recover the child, say: "Oh too bad, so sad, the child doesn't know you and has spent so many years in the care of us (the kidnappers) . . . and we've been brainwashing the child to say he/she wants to stay here with us . . . and, well, the (young) child should be allowed to tell the court where he/she wants to stay." Or, "it would be too harmful for this child to be returned because we're (I'm) the only parent he knows."Of course, Thinklogically" makes no mention of the fact that David Goldman has been seeking the child since the kidnapping, has taken all of the proper legal steps, has been forced to spend more money than most people could possibly commit . . . simply to recover that child who has so wrongfully been removed from him.