A judge began hearing a closed-door legal challenge on Monday to pop star Madonna’s bid to adopt a baby boy from Malawi, brought by a coalition of local human rights groups.
The Human Rights Consultative Committee, an alliance of 67 groups, claims the government broke its own laws by granting an 18-month interim adoption order which has allowed the singer to bring up David Banda outside Malawi.
They are hoping to persuade the presiding judge Andrew Nyirenda that they should have the right to bring a full-fledged appeal at a later hearing.
A spokesperson for the group said they were keen to bring greater clarity to the existing rules regarding adoption, claiming that intra-country adoptions were not currently allowed.
”The committee is representing the children of Malawi and we have come to the court as friends of the court in order to help the government draw up rules on intra-country adoption,” Maxwell Matewere, a leading children’s rights activist, told Agence France-Presse outside the court in Lilongwe.
David, a 14-month-old baby whose mother died shortly after his birth, is now living with Madonna and her British filmmaker husband Guy Ritchie at their home in London even though would-be adoptive parents are usually subject to an 18-month monitoring period by social workers in Malawi.
Madonna has denied using her vast wealth to fast-track the process while David’s father Yohane Banda has called on the coalition to drop their action over fear that the singer will return him to a life of poverty in Malawi.
Matere said however it was vital that the adoption laws be clarified, adding the group would examine other legal channels if the judge did not allow them to take their case forward.
”We will use other means in order to force the government to make proper rules on intra-country adoption,” he said.
Madonna is being represented in court by leading Malawi lawyer Allan Chinula who made no comment to reporters as he arrived at the court.
The rights groups did suffer a blow just before the start of the hearing when a lawyer who had been signed up to help present the case decided to withdraw.
Titus Mvalo said that while he would like a judge to pronounce on the legality of intra-country adoptions, he feared his motives could be misrepresented in such a high-profile case.
”I see a biggger likelihood of being misunderstood,” he said.
The rights group’s lead counsel, Justin Dzodzi, made no comment to reporters as he slipped in through a back door at the court. – Sapa-AFP