Good vs. the law

Marie Vodičková, chair of the Fund for Children in Need, is again locked in a battle with the Labour and Social Affairs Ministry. As in some of her past conflicts, the case has garnered plenty of media attention. It is being presented as a battle with incompetent bureaucracy and imperfect laws on one side and pure good on the other. „It is incredible that they are trying to punish someone who is trying to help,“ Atuálně.cz quotes Vodičková.

According to three regional offices, the fund arranged illegal adoptions last year. The offices have issued a CZK 450,000 fine, and it is highly likely that the ministry will support this finding. Officials say, for instance, that in two cases, the fund used false paternity documents – a man wanting to adopt the child signed with the Registrar’s Office as the child's father. The mother was in a difficult social situation and wanted to give up the child but at the same time did not want to risk that the child would be placed in an institution. According to existing laws, only the state has the power to arrange adoptions. Vodičková says this law does not make sense. She wants to file an appeal against the regional offices' decision.

The fund's most famous media campaign took place seven years ago. The case of the „kidnapping“ of three Mesárošov siblings. The fund took in three neglected abandoned children and handed them over to a family that went into…