[meganicolson]

I'm halfway posting this to see if my fancy data in my signature line works (thanks to the tutorial from a few of you). I'm also curious to know if some of you who know the Colombian legal system might understand this better than I do. You'd think that after completing two Colombian adoptions I'd have this figured out, but I'm still confused.

I've been watching Kate and Ruth Ann's blogs for updates and remembering all of our wonderful, special moments in Colombia. It is so nice to be able to live vicariously through others as they travel. I was thinking about Kate's sentencia as she has written that the judge is over his "10 days to sign" and another family there with her spent 11.5 weeks in Colombia due to (I think) the same judge. (Maybe not the same judge...can't remember correctly.)

Could someone post again the legal steps of the procedure. They are fuzzy in my memory. Also, I heard that some judges require the signature of the Defender of Minors while other judges do not at the end of the case. Does it/should it vary by court room? If the judge has the freedom to require or not require the signature of the defender of minors it seems that the authority is really in the judge's hands, not in a formal process. Also, what is a family to do if they find themselves in the situation where the judge has gone over his "allotted" time to sign. I'd personally be afraid to say anything for fear that he'd deny the adoption altogether. I mean, he is a judge and I'm just a foreigner who is adopting one (or two or eventually a total of 5) of his country's children!

Also, could someone explain the difference in length of court cases in different areas of the country? It seems odd to hear some agencies say that families should expect a 6-8 week stay while others consistently say 4-6 weeks for the same region of the country.

Maybe after our third adoption from Colombia I'll get this figured out. Thanks for all of your help and expertise...

[NashvilleGirl]

Megan,

Great questions! I wish I knew the answers to some of them myself! Here is what I know. After you have your meeting with the defender of minors at ICBF and you get their approval, you will be assigned to a court and all of your documents will be sent there. I'm not sure who actually assigns you and how it is decided which court you get. Once your documents reach court, they are reviewed to make sure they are all correct, have the right signatures, etc... This is the part that can very in time. Some courts have fewer cases and process things faster. Some courts are busier. And I'm sure, some courts are just more efficient than others. Once all the paperwork is OK'd, it is sent to the judge. He supposedly has 10 business days to sign off, although in Kate's case, the judge went over his allotted time. What is one to do if that happens? Not sure. You're sort of at their mercy. I know Bogota courts take longer that courts in Medellin or Cali, I'm assuming because Bogota is a much larger city with many more cases. We found out today that we got assigned to court # 20. Apparently it's not the fastest court, but is not the slowest either, so we're somewhere in between.

[meganicolson]

Thanks for the answers Ruth Ann - your daughter is adorable! I just love reading your updates!

I do know from our previous adoptions that you are assigned a court randomly by a computer. We were in court #3 both times. 5 weeks for our first adoption and 6 weeks for our second - though I have my suspicions that the second would have likely been 5 weeks if the lawyer had checked in with the court earlier that week.

While both of our children are from the Bogota area I wouldn't mind a referral from a different area of Colombia so that we could learn and experience more of Colombia.

[DrLaura]

Send them a letter stating your preference. Explain that you would like to experience more of your children's birth country. Worst that can happen is they assign you to Bogota and you travel while you are waiting for Sentencia.

[AdoptInMN]

Hi Megan! I've been meaning to reply to this but hadn't found the time yet (wow do the little ones keep you on your toes!). I'll explain the best I can, but just PM me if you have any other questions and I'll send you my phone #.

I want to preface this by saying that I'm passing along the info that I got from both our agency rep, the lawyer that handled our case, and what I learned from other families that were there at the time I was. I haven't read the laws, so this is how it was interpreted to me, so they could be inaccurate. Also, with the law changes that happened this last fall, there is apparently some confusion as to how those should be interpreted and whether these same standards apply. Our lawyer said that this was still being debated, so things may change. Also, all reference to "days" means business days.

Like Ruth Ann said, you're assigned to a court. From that time we were told that the court has 10 days to review the file and request any additional information or paperwork. That request goes to the Defendor of Minors (DoM) that you interviewed with. The DoM then has 5 days to get that info back to the judge. Then the judge has 10 more days to review the file and either ask again for more info, or sign off on the case. After the judge has signed off, anothere DoM that works at the court (not the same one you interviewed with) signs off on the file. I'm told that usually happens the same day and is a formality, so it doesn't take much time. After that is when most families can go and do Sentencia and sign off.

Now, on to the exceptions. First, the family that was there for 11.5 weeks was in a different court than us. Their case had a 4 week delay because of a special circumstance, though not related to their case. The courts moved physical locations (to another part of Bogota) while they were in process. I was told that most courts took 1-3 days to do the move before they resumed their regular work. The judge of their court decided to take 4 weeks to reorganize their files during the move. Because of this, the court was "open" but not processing any cases for those 4 weeks. There was nothing they could do but wait. Again, we were told that this was the only court that decided to take this much time, and I don't think the courts move very often, so not likely something other people will face. They did also have another special circumstance with their court. They were told that there is a District Judge (I know this is the wrong title, but I don't remember what the real title was) that is assigned to 2 courts for periods of 6-12 months at a time. It appears to be an internal auditing kind of thing. The judge is assigned to random courts to review their cases, and all cases in the court require their signature as well as the regular court judge's. This did take them a couple extra days to get, and they were told it can take up to a week to get, depending on the schedule of that person. Again, out of the 20+ courts, this person is assigned to 2 courts at a time, so it doesn't sound like it's very common to have a delay because of this.

The issues that arose with our case seem to be more related to how different people are interpreting the new laws. We were told that our judge had a very big case load at the time and just didn't have time to sign off. The lawyer was there each day to check on the case. While the judge knows the 10-5-10 standard, he believed that this was not a "rule" based on the new laws. We had to wait until he had time to sign, and there is really not much you can do unless you want to take it to their Supreme Court, which can take up to 6 months for them to review the case. The good news is that the judge did tell us in about the 2nd week of waiting that he would sign (he was not disputing any of our paperwork).

As for the difference in length of stay based on the area of the country, what you posted is exactly what we were told - Bogota has the biggest and busiest court system, and other areas of the country can just process cases faster as they have lighter loads.

Not that you're implying this at all, but I have been asked, so I will say that I am not bitter at all towards anyone that worked on our case. While of course it would be nice to know timelines, we knew getting into international adoption that it is very flexible. I heard stories there about people that had very difficult cases, some that were never resolved (mainly due to issues with the adoptive country), and am so thankful that we had a pretty smooth, though longer, in-country process. I unfortunately was even witness to an adoption that was stopped due to the adoptive parents backing out after a few days with the children - it was beyond heartbreaking. It's a beautiful country (though I really wish we could have seen more!) and it was a joy to spend the time there that we did.

I'm hoping for a quick referral for you, Megan! We had a lot of families adopting older children and sibling groups at our hotel, and the children are just amazing!

Kate

Originally Posted by meganicolson

I'm halfway posting this to see if my fancy data in my signature line works (thanks to the tutorial from a few of you). I'm also curious to know if some of you who know the Colombian legal system might understand this better than I do. You'd think that after completing two Colombian adoptions I'd have this figured out, but I'm still confused.

I've been watching Kate and Ruth Ann's blogs for updates and remembering all of our wonderful, special moments in Colombia. It is so nice to be able to live vicariously through others as they travel. I was thinking about Kate's sentencia as she has written that the judge is over his "10 days to sign" and another family there with her spent 11.5 weeks in Colombia due to (I think) the same judge. (Maybe not the same judge...can't remember correctly.)

Could someone post again the legal steps of the procedure. They are fuzzy in my memory. Also, I heard that some judges require the signature of the Defender of Minors while other judges do not at the end of the case. Does it/should it vary by court room? If the judge has the freedom to require or not require the signature of the defender of minors it seems that the authority is really in the judge's hands, not in a formal process. Also, what is a family to do if they find themselves in the situation where the judge has gone over his "allotted" time to sign. I'd personally be afraid to say anything for fear that he'd deny the adoption altogether. I mean, he is a judge and I'm just a foreigner who is adopting one (or two or eventually a total of 5) of his country's children!

Also, could someone explain the difference in length of court cases in different areas of the country? It seems odd to hear some agencies say that families should expect a 6-8 week stay while others consistently say 4-6 weeks for the same region of the country.

Maybe after our third adoption from Colombia I'll get this figured out. Thanks for all of your help and expertise...

[meganicolson]

Wow, Kate. Thanks for the reply. I have heard the same 10-5-10 rule, with an additional 5 days tacked on to the end for the last defender of minors to sign. And of course, everyone needs to account for the 20+ national holidays in Colombia where the banks/courts are closed. It works out to be about one day off every other week or so due to a holiday, so when I figure out business days I usually think of a 4 day week/5 day week rotating schedule.

I LOVED our time in Colombia, but as a "planner" I really would have liked a hard and fast 8 weeks or 6 weeks instead of an unknown. It was also tough to have my husband have to head home because of work, but he's gotta work if we're going to adopt the children. When facing an unknown time in country this next time around I might try to prepare myself for the longest wait and just be pleasantly surprised if anything shorter happens. I think I did that last time, too, but it didn't work out the same.

You have a great attitude towards your stay in Colombia and it was evident on your caring bridge site. Having a positive attitude is the best thing to help with the unknown wait...that and being understanding that the judges and lawyers are probably busy people with a lot on their plate.

It would have been incredibly tough to have to endure the court move for 4 weeks. Quite expensive.

We are hoping for a quick referral, too. While we know that adding an older sibling group to our young little family will come with unique challenges, our hearts long to have them home and we are ready to carry the burdens that come along with it. Now if only our dossier would get finished being translated and get submitted to ICBF we could get started on this process officially!

[entropy]

do you have any idea iwhen you might receive your referral?

i know our time in Cartagena was quite beautiful yet also annoying. we were there during November which has lots of celebrations in Cartagena. Our judge was also the slowest. We were told to expect about 4 weeks in Cartagena and instead stayed for 7.

[meganicolson]

We really have no idea...

Our documents are STILL being translated. It has been 4 weeks so far. The last two times it took only 2 weeks, so I'm not sure what the hold up is this time.

We are hoping for a referral sometime this summer, and from what I've heard, that's pretty realistic unless ICBF has questions regarding our paperwork. It would be a whole lot easier to transition home to MN with children in the summer than in the winter, especially school aged children. Since our winter in MN lasts forever (like into May!!!!!) it will make their first winter seem so long...and it will seem long for me, too.

Whenever we get a referral it will be the perfect time for our family and I'm sure we will do our best to enjoy every bonding moment in Colombia, but there's still no place like home.

It sounds like it'd be good to avoid Cartagena in November, though.

[entropy]

I hope you get a department with a sort stay. the shortest i've heard is about 4 weeks, including time embassy in Bogota.

[dbh522]

We were in Colombia for 15 days. We flew in to Bogotá on 3/26 and flew to Yopal on 3/27 at which time we met our son. We received Sentencia on 4/5 and headed back to Bogotá the next day. We flew home the night of 4/10. Our trip actually would have been shorter if we hadn't arrived back in Bogotá on a Thurs night.
I think we set a record and went in expecting at least 3-4 weeks. I am glad we got the weekend in Bogotá otherwise we wouldn't have gotten in any sight seeing. I do have to say I don't know how much longer we could have lasted in Yopal though, no hot water and the incredibly intense heat and humidity. I easily could have stayed much longer in Bogotá though.