Two years after generating headlines in Brazil and the United States the case of Sean Goldman will be reviewed in the Brazilian Supreme Court (STF). There’s no date yet, however, for this procedure.
By a majority vote, the ministers of the First Panel of the Supreme Court decided Tuesday, November 29, that the Court should finally position itself on the dispute of relatives over the custody of American boy.
In 2009, the case created an international legal war centered in the dispute between the Brazilian maternal family of Sean and his American father, David Goldman.
The ministers of the First Panel understand that it is up to the plenary of the Supreme Court to have the final word on the matter because this is a test case, which involves the implementation of international treaties, and that should guide other similar procedures in the future.
Sean Goldman was born in the United States in 2000, the son of an American father and Brazilian mother Bruna Bianchi. The mother brought him to Brazil in 2004 for a holiday, but decided to get a divorce and remain in the country. She remarried and died in 2008 from complications in childbirth.
David Goldman claimed custody of the child, arguing that the international law dictates that the boy should live in the country where he was born and raised.
After a battle between the Brazilian family court and the biological father, then president of the Supreme Court, Gilmar Mendes, authorized the departure of Sean at the end of 2009 through an injunction. However, the merits of the request were never analyzed.
The case has also created conflict within the Supreme, since the Minister Gilmar Mendes disallowed the rapporteur of the proceedings, Justice Marco Aurélio Mello, in determining the departure of the boy. Marco Aurélio, in his opinion, had ruled that Sean stayed with the maternal family.
