Aug 7, 2008
Dear Editor,
Recently I had a sad experience in the Supreme Court when a grandmother was denied visitation rights with her grandson because she had no “locus standi.” That means because the Families and Children Act law states that: “the Court may upon the application of any of the parents of a child make such order as it may think fit regarding the right of access to the child of either parent,” this grandmother did not have the right to approach the court to ask that a court order be given that would allow her to visit with her grandson. She was a grandmother, and not a parent.
In this case, the grandmother’s daughter is deceased and she is the mother of the child. The deceased mother, the father of the child and the grandson all lived at the maternal grandparents’ home for some months before the death of the mother of the child. The relationship between them was good. After the death of the mother, in fact, on the ninth day after her death there was an altercation between the deceased’s father and the father of the child that ended in injuries being inflicted on family members belonging to the father’s family.
On the eleventh day after the mother’s death, the father sent a letter to the grandmother telling her she could pick up the child at his residence and have him for the day once each week. The child should be returned by 5 p.m. The grandmother and her family decided to approach the court to request normal visitation rights that would allow them to have the child for longer periods. The father then laid down a new procedure; the grandmother could visit with the child at the child’s residence but could not take the child away from the residence. Eventually the father decided that the grandmother could not see the child at all.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child speaks of a child having the right to his or her identity and State Parties undertaking to respect the right of the child to preserve his identity including nationality, name and family relations as recognized by law.
In this case, the judge used the fact that the grandparent was not a parent, and so had no locus standing, and accepted evidence that the grandparent was a violent man so the child would not be safe if he was brought to the grandparents’ home. This is even in the face of evidence that the child and his parents had lived in the grandparents’ home for months.
In the U.S.A., the emotional hardship of grandparents being denied the opportunity to see their grandchildren was addressed by states legislating grandparents’ visitation statutes. Forty-nine states have enacted grandparents’ visitation statutes in varying form, granting to grandparents a judicial remedy when they are denied access to their grandchildren.
In Belize, we need a similar law which makes it quite clear that grandparents do have visitation rights. I have been approached by three grandparents who are currently being denied access to grandchildren of deceased daughters. I tried to get this grandmother to see her grandsons by using the Convention, but I think, failing a bold move by the judiciary to use the provisions of the Convention, legislation will be necessary to remedy this unfairness. Hopefully, this will be sooner rather than later.
Anyone having this kind of grandparent visitation problem is invited to contact me at 602-6952 or email [email protected].
Yours truly,
Cynthia Pitts