Word: legalization
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...agreements. Brazilian lawyers said Sean Goldman's stepfather, João Lins e Silva, has diligently followed due process in his attempt to retain custody of his late wife's son. (She died in childbirth earlier this year.) But there is still a sense that the already slow legal system is being swayed, in part, by money and influence. Sean's stepfather's family, the Lins e Silvas, is well known in Brazilian legal circles and they have so far used the system skillfully to retain custody of the child. (Can Rio's crime problem be solved before the Olympics...
...they know what steps they can legitimately take within the system here," said a U.S. official familiar with the case. "But what we need to make clear is that the Government of Brazil is in agreement for his return [to his biological father]. We need to work through the legal system so the Brazilian government can enforce the return." Indeed, David Goldman had flown to Rio de Janeiro to pick up his son after a federal court in Brazil ruled he had legal custody of the boy, only to be greeted by news that a Supreme Court judge had decided...
...kidnapping" the boy. Some criticized what they called a stunt by the boy's step-grandmother of displaying to the press hand-painted posters purportedly written by the child that declared "I want to stay in Brazil forever." Others online commenters argued that another family without the name or legal background of the Lins e Silvas would have not secured such consistent triumphs in the appeals process...
Lawyers here cautioned that judges rule according to law, not public opinion, and stressed the correct legal procedures have been followed to the letter, albeit slowly. But that tortuous process has irritated many Brazilians and not just because they feel there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. Many see the Goldman ordeal as a glaring showcase of how molasses-like Brazilian justice operates - of how justice often denied because it's so inexcusably delayed. Moreover, in a nation where family is all important, people have been critical of the spectacle of people fighting so blatantly...
...State Dept said Brazil "demonstrates patterns of non-compliance" with the Hague Convention, the global treaty on protecting children it signed in 1999. At least 46 other minors are currently being held in similar limbo past the six-week deadline mandated by the accord. But whatever the international legal agreements, this case has been and eventually will be decided by Brazilian courts. The court of public opinion, however, has already ruled. No one is innocent. Except poor Sean...