The 2nd level Federal Court in Mexico that was responsible to decide the Hague case for my son has just published their decision.
They waited till the last minute and reached the deadline to publish a decision after having the case since early February.
Their decision, as has become a Mexican legal custom in my mind, was to make no decision at all and declare themselves legally incompetent to hear the case as an "Amparo Directo" because, supposedly, Hague cases never involve final decisions that put an end to the litigation (this is an entirely ridiculous and bogus claim which is directly contrary to the way Hague cases are generally handled in Mexico) and, therefore (according to the 2nd level Federal Court,) the appropriate federal appeal is an "Amparo Indirecto" which is handled by the 1st level Federal Court rather than the 2nd level courts.
And so, after eight months, they published a 25 page convoluted mess to justify handing the case over to a 1st level Mexican Federal Court who will take over the case sometime soon. If we were to universalize the nonsense published by the 2nd level Federal Court in this case, then Hague cases would never go to the Mexican Supreme court because, somehow, an order to return (or not return) a child is NEVER a "final" decision that can be handled by the 2nd level Federal Courts upon direct appeal from a State appeals court (even though this is generally exactly how these cases proceed... with a direct Federal appeal ie "amparo directo") to the 2nd level Federal Courts.
Keeping in mind, this 2nd level Federal Court is the same court who, three years ago, declared two years of litigation null and void and overturned a 1st level Federal Court order to return my son (the case was also handled by a 1st level federal court after the State appeals court the first time around in 2010 for other, non-related reasons caused by my wife's attempt to cause delays) with the specious justification being that the grossly corrupt and inept prosecutor assigned to be the "representative" of the child didn't attend all the hearings of the case during the initial trial (keeping in mind here that the general jurisprudence in every major jurisdiction/country handling Hague cases is that, barring exceptional circumstances, the child generally does need to have their own separate representative during the trial as they are adequately represented by their parents.... along with the fact that my son, who is now six, was one year old at the time that he was, supposedly, misrepresented and not allowed to have his "voice" heard at the trial. And of course, after two years of litigation were declared null in 2010 because the child was improperly represented... they assigned the same, supposedly incompetent, prosecutor to represent him again in the new 1st level Hague trial that, eventually, started in 2011 and continues today...
So yeah... basically just more of the same.
Had the 2nd level federal court made an actual decision we would have still had a final level of appeal left before the Mexican Supreme Court. Now that the (new) initial Federal Court decision will be before a 1st Federal Court there will be another final level of appeal left back before the same 2nd level Federal Court which has now, twice, made up some bullshit to send the case back to the lower level courts and avoid addressing any substantive issues related to the case altogether. Once that is done, and the decision to return (or not return) Sage can become "final," we get to start a similiar set of appeals processes where the manner in which the "final" decision is enforced is appealed back up through the Federal Courts (who will hand it back to State courts to implement and enforce their decision.)
In my, now very experienced estimation, we are at least a year and half away from anything resembling a final and fully enforceable decision.... which would probably never be enforced anyway as law enforcement there likes to claim they cannot find children even when they have the correct address (as has happened w/ cases like Chloe Combe Rivas who was abducted to Mexico in 2006, ordered returned in 2009 by the Mexican Supreme court, but remains in Mexico today while her father has nothing but a valid enforcement letter that he spent a fortune to obtain... but which has never been enforced.... although it did go to a 2nd level Federal Court via Amparo Directo and had the final appeal handled by the Mexican Supreme Court.)
