Equipe eyeLegal
Rede Global de Direitos Civis
January 2009

The paternity fraud industry
Know everything about how they take away the people's children with
“marmalade” in the Brazilian Justice

3. Is the judge committing a crime?

It would be reckless, even dangerous to discuss criminal aspects of the specific case. This is not the proper place and, furthermore, we do not have sufficient knowledge of the details of the proceedings to bolster such an affirmation. However, there is nothing to stop us from pointing up clues which would apply to any case in which custody becomes an issue. Added to the custody issue we have the arbitrary barring of communication with one or both of a child’s biological parents, absent legal grounds on which to base such segregation of a minor from its natural family:

1. Granting of anticipatory relief in violation of Code of Civil Procedure Article 273, paragraph 2; 2. Granting custody of a minor child to someone who has no natural kinship with that child or teenager, when the minor does have a living father and/or mother fully capable of assuming parental authority:

3. Granting of custody, under the above circumstances, to a person of some influence in judicial circles, as well as by corruption, bribery or political logrolling;

4. The outlandish petition that natural family ties, well-established in law, be undone and replaced pursuant to some rashly-contrived theory having no precedent in jurisprudence, and self-defeatingly misapplied to boot;

5. Having other pending cases or connection with other actions already in proceedings in the same or in a number of different courts, relating to the same matter, over the same child, and filed by the same parties or featuring one of the natural parents as either petitioner or respondent;

6. Absolute lack of jurisdiction of the State court granting custody in a case that is Federal by dint of a pre-existing search warrant issued by international legal authorities based on the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction;

7. Issuing a blanket order directed against the press to do or refrain from doing, that is not part of the proceedings, under penalty of spectacular fines.

All of these things, taken together, doubtless justify the gravest sort of misgivings with regard to these court decisions, whenever such a measure seeks to arbitrarily segregate a child or teenager from its natural family, that is, the father and/or the mother. That much is obvious when even visitation rights are denied, and in camera proceedings distorted into lending their mantle of secrecy to a cover-up of a monstrosity abhorrent to society.

Take, for example, the Cássia Eller case. Despite press coverage both broad and deep, nary a voice was raised to shield the image of the minor child whose family drama was spotlighted by the audience-hungry media. In the Eller case, the press disclosed that the court's decision had the support of the family of the deceased mother, and that the father was also deceased as of five days prior to the birth of the child.

Any student of civil procedure knows that the rulings of a case are binding only upon the parties thereto, and for that reason the judge hearing the case cannot issue a gag order in the general direction of the press, for it would have no legal merit. The "press" is neither an individual nor a party to any lawsuit. Should an agency of the press abuse its right to publish specific information, the injured party should then file suit against that particular publisher of information. There is no way to preemptively bind the press under prior censorship by fiat. The exact opposite is true, in that the press should never be cowed into silence in the face of injustice out of fear of some big shot – with or without a gavel.

Furthermore, whenever a child is born, a record of that birth is filed wherever the birth took place. If it is outside of Brazil, such a record is routinely transcribed to a Brazilian Civil Registry Clerk:

PUBLIC RECORDS LAW – Law No. 6015/1973

Article 32. All birth, death and marriage records of Brazilians in foreign countries are deemed authentic under the laws of the place where they were recorded, once their certificates have been duly received or certified by consuls, pursuant to consular regulations.

§1 All records affected by this article must, if they are to become enforceable in Brazil, be transcribed at the 1st Registry Office of the registrant's domicile, or the 1st Registry Office of the Federal District, if said domicile is unknown, or rather, through a certified copy the consuls are required to forward through the good offices of the Ministry of External Relations.

§2 Children born abroad to Brazilian parents not stationed there in government service, if registered at a Brazilian Consulate or not registered, and who take up residence within Brazil before coming of age, may apply, at the court of their domicile, to have their birth record recorded in book "E" of the 1st Civil Registry Office.

§3 The birth record and its corresponding birth certificates, recorded as set forth in the preceding paragraph, shall bear a statement that they are valid only as proof of Brazilian nationality, through the fourth (04) year after attaining majority.

§4 Within the four year period following attainment of majority on the part of the interested party mentioned in §2, that individual may declare in favor of adopting Brazilian nationality before a federal court. If the application is granted, that shall be noted in book "E" of the 1st Notary Office where the person opting for citizenship is domiciled.

§5 Should the choice mentioned in the preceding paragraph not be forthcoming, the clerk shall strike from the record the provisional status recorded pursuant to §2.

There is no way, in Brazil, to alter the birth record of anyone born in a foreign country. This is because the legal authorities here have no powers abroad, and the Brazilian transcription is based entirely on the original foreign record. Even on the unlikely supposition that our Judiciary were to uphold decisions as absurd as in these cases, no such order would be accepted anywhere by the local courts other than as an attempt to defraud. Hence, John Q. Citizen, born on such-and-such a date at such-and-such a time, at this birthplace, son of his father and mother – is somewhere a matter of record which cannot and will not be altered. Any ruling here that such truths are to be altered in time and space would amount to an instance of procedural pettifoggery.

The law forbids a judge to lie in proceedings. If and when a judge was to lie – and place the lie on the record – he would be guilty, in theory, of imposture and using fake documents. To that one might add fraudulent abuse of authority and betrayal of the public trust – this latter if the evidence showed the judge had so acted for personal gain or the gain of another.

Special rules of procedure apply to custody cases involving minors, and are set forth in the Child and Teenager Statute. These rules, incompatible with ordinary paternity actions, spell out how the procedure is accomplished and describes its various stages. A petition for custody is an express, summary affair which calls for a speedy decision. It cannot be postponed until the child becomes a teenager, or the teenager an adult.

Herein lies the sham, precisely in the indefinite delays in the prosecution of a custody suit. Such a suit cannot be joined or bundled up with a paternity petition filed on social or affective grounds, for it involves placing the child in a foster home, that is, in the care of persons other than the child's natural family – the custody of someone other than the biological father or mother.

CHILD AND TEENAGER STATUTE – Law No. 8069/1990

Article 19 – Every child or teenager is assured the right to be raised and educated in its family surroundings, and in special cases, with a foster family, where the child is assured a family and community environment, entirely free of narcotics addicts.

Article 25 – By natural family is meant the community comprised by the parents, or either parent, and their offspring.

Clearly, then, it is only in exceptional cases that child or teenager may be placed in a foster home. The boy has a father. It is precisely for that reason that the legal requirements for preemptively granting custody in a paternity petition are absent. De facto and de jure custody was exercised – not by the stepfather – but by the late natural mother. All of this has been thoroughly covered in the press.