Friday, April 3, 2009

And now to Mister Interpret.

Step 1: Success!! The MSA is convinced that we are right. The info from the attorneys has made them believe that our adoption is legal. Diana says that everyone there is totally behind us, wants the adoption to happen, and they will support us. (!!!)

The only obstacle left is the following...

According to the MSA, the judge is the one who said (all those months ago) that Russia needs to provide consent for their adoption. Apparently this is only because of misunderstanding the bilateral agreement. But they believe that if an attorney presented the accurate application of the bilateral agreement to a judge, it has more weight than the MSA presenting it.

So it stands to reason that if several attorneys and the MSA now believe, based on clear law, that the adoption IS legal and the bilateral doesn't apply to us, then maybe just a meeting between an attorney and the judge would fix this all.

There's also a possibility that the case could go to a new judge, who would be presented with the legality of the adoption.

Then there's the possibility that whatever judge is presented with the legal information could still say no, for some unknown reason. In which case the attorney can "absolutely" (according to Diana) help find a judge who would allow the adoption.

So everyone's recommendation is that we have the attorney we choose take care of this situation with "the" and/or "a" judge. A lawyer can hopefully get somewhere quicker, and more effectively, than everyone else.

See, if they just told us what the problem was all along, we could have done this months ago! But it's impossible to get any questions answered. Once we found out that they believed that 1) the Hague was requiring this craziness, and then 2) that the bilateral agreement is requiring this craziness, it took us just a few days to find out that there really is no problem.

I regret being another one to make reference to television shows, I guess Dr. House is correct: If something doesn't make sense, then one of your assumptions must be wrong.

We're just so glad that the problem is NOT whether or not the Hague supersedes the bilateral, or something even more complex. It is simple: The bilateral agreement "might" require consent from Russia, but it does not apply anyway to adoptions where the adoptive parents are not citizens of the contracting parties - Russia and Estonia.

More on Monday, when we speak to the attorneys again... But for now, be excited with us! This amount of progress usually takes months! Now we just have to jitter all weekend until we can continue.

:))))

Molly

5 comments:

Rachael said...

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ::insert super duper happy dance here!!!::

Viola & Steve said...

its about time you get some news . your kids are really lucky to have you both fighting for them.

dad said...

Great news! I'll be jittery with you all weekend!

The LaBelle Family said...

Fantastic, girlfriend, even tho I don't understand ANY of that law jibberish you spoke of. I AM very excited for you and hope that this comes to a beginning/end really soon! Hang in there, you three. OH, and, BTW, where are those pix you promised us of Anna (and how do you pronounce this, like a short O or a short A?) and the dogs? Get busy, Momma!

KATHY said...

Oh too bad, no research this weekend, reading Russian and Estonian stuff at 3 AM and feeling so xenophobic. The feeling is already returning to my left arm and I can almost see colors again.

Dr. House is right, but he is not real. But he's right....so does that make him real? I always say that too. But it does have more weight coming from a fictional TV character who doesn't shave and is a drug addict.

Molly, nice lawyer. Does she have a driver's license yet? I wish I looked like her, along with 95% of all women. Pardon my mirth – but I feel optimistic.