In his first statement after being informed that Brazil's Chief Justice, Gilmar Mendes, had ruled in his favor, letting him take his son with him to the United States, David Goldman told his lawyer Ricardo Zamariola that he was very happy, but also apprehensive because he didn't know the details of the decision.
The custody of his 9-year-old son, Sean Goldman, has been a matter of dispute in the Brazilian courts since Sean's mother, Brazilian Bruna Bianchi, died in 2008 during the birth of her daughter. Her husband, lawyer João Paulo Lins e Silva, adopted the American boy and has been fighting in court to keep him in Brazil with Chiara, his little sister who is 1 year and 3 months old.
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Sean's Brazilian family had threatened a war of injunctions in case they lost. Their strategy is to claim that as a Brazilian citizen, the little boy cannot be taken out from Brazil against his will.
Right after the Supreme decision, however, they said through their lawyers, they would only make a statement after going through the whole court papers. Lawyer Fabiana Gomes reiterated that the family intends to do everything within the law, to get custody of the boy.
Last week, Silvana Bianchi, the maternal grandmother of Sean got an injunction preventing Goldman to take his son to the United States. Chief Justice Mendes has ruled against that injunction that had been granted after a Rio Federal Court had given 48 hours for the boy to be handed down to his biological father.
This Tuesday, Bianchi sent an open letter to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva asking that the boy be heard, since, according to her, he wishes to stay in Brazil.
The letter says in part: "The Judicial decisions that have been taken by determining the handing out of Sean in 48 hours to the American Consulate did not take into account the wishes of my grandson to stay in Brazil. They argued that the Hague Convention requires immediate delivery. I am not a lawyer, but what I know is that the Convention establishes as maximum priority the child's interest. And the child was not heard.
"Mr President, this is not an outburst of a grandmother in agony. It is the cry of a Brazilian fighting with all her forces, the ones she still has, so that the Justice of this country apply the laws with the essential dose of humanity.
"Trying to take a 9-year-old child from his daily life with the family he has continuously lived with for 5 years, and especially from his sister, 1.3-year-old Chiara, which finds great comfort in Sean, just on Christmas Eve, represents an inhumanity. Jesus came to earth to save humankind. May God protect those who believe in the supreme principle of Christianity, the preservation of the family."
On Thursday, the same day David Goldman, arrived in Brazil to get his son, Marco Aurélio Mello, a Supreme Court Justice and rapporteur of the case, granted an injunction to the grandmother keeping the boy in Brazil with his Brazilian family until he could be heard by the Court. This might have taken at least till February since the court is now in recess.
The Attorney General of the Union (AGU) and the boy's father appealed to the Supreme requesting the immediate delivery of Sean. According to a spokesperson from the STF, Mendes took his decision to revoke the injunction based on previous rulings by the Supreme.
