Europeans - for a family in trouble because they left Germany

[Joan in Geneva]

Part 1 - because this is so long, there are two posts.

There is a new case where a child could be removed from his parents even after leaving the country. He was not being homeschooled in Germany but is now in his new country.

There are other families who have their children removed from them even after they have left the country.

Because the child was sickly (asthma), he was frequently absent from school. The authorities claim that the mom was getting doctors to write false medical certificates and wanted to take her child away. There was no legal case against her though.

Here is the letter that has been sent to them. (in German)

http://eu-le.eu/bvnl/download/bilder.pdf

There are addresses where you can write if you want to try to make a difference for them in the next post.

I received the following from a woman who knows about the situation, who used to live in Germany.

Thanks for reading and even more for writing (to the court),
Joan


This was written by someone who knows the case (not myself)

Dear friends of freedom and variety in education

The Sontowski family needs your support.

The authorities are unfortunately not able to accept that they cannot persecute a family that is no longer living in Germany.

Because Angela Sontowski and her son were not left in peace when they moved abroad, with the authorities harassing them after they were no longer living in Germany, the whole family has been put under enormous stress.

Anyone who can offer assistance is asked to contact us. It costs money for them to write letters to the authorities and Angela's husband now has to travel back and forth between two countries. Other costs that were not anticipated have also arisen. The family has had to appoint a lawyer, who also has to be paid for his services.

We would also be grateful if you could pass on this story, and ask others, particularly people living in countries around Germany, if there is any way that they can help the Sontowskis. Unfortunately, as other families have had their children removed from them after they had left Germany, the Sontowskis could still be in danger.

The addresses of the various authorities involved with this issue are listed at the end of this letter. We would appreciate it if you would take a few minutes to write a brief letter to even one of these authorities (it would probably be a good idea if letters were sent to the court) to express your disbelief and shock at how the Sontowskis have been treated. If you do decide to write a letter, please keep it brief, pleasant and polite, mentioning that the Sontowskis had not broken any German laws and that in your own country, people do not fall under the jurisdiction of local courts once they have left the country. It is important to avoid any references to Nazis, which would be totally counterproductive. An example of such a letter is also given, but it would be great if you could express yourselves in your own words.

This was not a home education case per se (although Angela Sontowski will now be home educating her son in a country where this is legal), and the authorities in Niedersachsen could have applied the education laws of that state to provide private tuition for Tarek. When we were living in Niedersachsen, we were told by the authorities that exemptions from Schulpflicht were only possible where the reason for the exemption lay in the person of the specific child. This is what they had to say about this: (my translation)

..according to Article 63, Section 5 of the Education Law
of Niedersachsen, … private instruction may only be granted to school age
children in the first 6 years in exceptional circumstances. Article 63, Section 5 states a rule-exception relationship. There must be important reasons to justify the granting of private instruction.

Grounds for an exception must normally have to do with the person of the child, i.e. his or her physical, emotional constitution or his or her character.

As you can see, it is very clear that Tarek would have fallen into this category and the education authorities could have given his mother the opportunity to apply for such an exemption so that he could receive private tuition from the state. However, in this case, they chose to make the assumption that this mother was falsifying sick notes, or perhaps getting doctors to write false medical certificates on her behalf and, instead of approaching her and offering to work with her, just threatened her with fines and then tried to take her child away from her when she decided to leave the country.

Rina Groeneveld

The contact person in this matter is Corinna Fischer

Email: falumafischer@t-online.de

[Joan in Geneva]

Part 2 - read above if you have gotten directed to this post first...

The Sontowski family's story

On Friday, February 5, Angela Sontowski and her son Tarek officially deregistered themselves at their Einwohnermeldeamt (local registration office) in New Wulmstorf, so that they could move abroad, to France.

Two hours later, Frau Richard from the Jugendamt (Department responsible for children) was at their door, threatening the mother and forbidding her to leave Germany. Angela Sontowski was told that if she tried to leave the country, she would lose custody of her son and a court order would be issued to prevent them from leaving. According to Frau Richard, the registration office itself had informed the Jugendamt of their deregistration. There is no known legal basis for such an action.

At this point, the Jugendamt already had no jurisdiction, according to German law, because they can only act when a child's legal guardians are still registered and living in the precinct that falls within the remit of that Jugendamt.

On Monday February 8 2010, Angela Sontowski's parents submitted a letter, in which Ms. Sontowski expressed clearly that any permission she had previously given for the exchange of information was revoked, to all the relevant authorities. At this point, Angela Sontowski and Tarek no longer resided there and Tarek was not registered at the school.

After the Jugendamt employees and a public health doctor read the letter, which stated clearly that Angela Sontowski did not consent to any exchange of information, the doctor and the social worker discussed the matter in the next room!

After receiving their version of the letter, the school forwarded it onto the Jugendamt.

After reading the letter, the Jugendamt took the letter from the school and passed it onto the District Court in Tostedt!

The unauthorized exchange of information occurred four times within a short period of time. There was no subtle attempt to disguise this exchange. It took place openly in front of witnesses.

The District Court in Tostedt had already been informed, by word of mouth, on Friday February 5th by the Jugendamt that a child had to be removed from a family that was making the illegal declaration that they would be moving house at the weekend or on the Friday. Frau Richard did not inform Judge Wegmann that the move had already occurred and that the people in question were no longer officially resident there. Judge Wegmann then gave the ruling, which was issued in writing on February 8, 2010 and sent to the address at which Angela Sontowski and her son had previously lived, on February 10 2010. Because of the official appearance of the letter, Angela Sontowski's husband (who is not Tarek's biological father or legal guardian), curious to see what was in the letter, opened it.

Judge Wegmann had decided that the most 'benign' measure possible, as a result of the accusations made by the Jugendamt, was to prohibit the family from changing their place of residence

Let's not forget that the move had already taken place and the mother and child had found a place to stay in a neighbouring country and had moved their residence to this country.

According to the Basic Law (constitution) of Germany, the judge also had no jurisdiction. Her ruling had no legal effect, as Angela Sontowski and her son were no longer under the remit of this court at the time that it was made.

The letter was actually not even deliverable, as Ms Sontowski was no longer at this address.

A representative of the president of the Regional Court in Stade commented, regarding the case, that it was part of the independence of the judiciary, to decide whether a ruling could be made about a family that had already moved away.

First we wondered if this meant that the family was banned from leaving the country, as had often happened in the past, but after further consideration, we made the following deduction: If the family were barred from moving, does this also mean that they are not allowed to return to Germany, as the prohibition had been announced after they had already
left.

Four days after a German family had left the country, an application for withdrawal of custody was made to the court. Furthermore, the court hearing was set for February 23 2010, even though the mother was given until February 24 2010 to respond to the first judgement, were it in any way legally valid.

Three days after a German family declared, in writing, that they were revoking permission for the exchange of personal details, all sorts of personal information was exchanged between the school, the Jugendamt, the court and the public health doctor.

Tarek is an 8-year old boy with asthma. This diagnosis has been confirmed by doctors. He is very prone to contracting illnesses and is thus often ill. He was attending school, but was put back a year after he became ill. He then started attending another school and became ill again very quickly. He was off school for long periods, but he always had a sick note. In spite of this, his family received threats of fines. The public health doctor was then sent out to the family. She did not examine Tarek, but just looked briefly at him and came to the conclusion that he had the appearance of being in full health. A move had been on the cards for a while, but they had wanted to avoid this, so as not to tear the family apart. Due to Tarek's health, they had now decided that it was imperative for them to
move somewhere else.

The school made no attempts to provide individual tuition for Tarek, and the Jugendamt did not offer them any alternatives either. The court did not follow up on its official duty to investigate the matter, so as to first find out whether this application might be as result of unprofessional
actions and lies on the part of the Jugendamt.

The state commissioner for data privacy has been informed and formal complaints about all the civil servants involved are being submitted.

Letters can be
written to the various authorities at the following addresses:

The district court:

Amtsgericht Tostedt

Unter den Linden 23

21255 Tostedt

Tel.: 04182/297-0

Fax: 04182/297-100

poststelle@ag-tos.niedersachsen.de

The President of the Regional Court in Stade:

Herr Fitting

Postfach 16 22, 21682 Stade

Tel: 04141 107-1

Fax: 04141 107-213

emailto: lgstd-Poststelle@justiz.niedersachsen.de

The Landrat (District Administrator) Joachim Bordt

Landkreis Harburg

Schloßplatz 6

21423 Winsen (Luhe)

Telefon: 04171 693-0

Fax: 04171 687-0

E-Mail: buergerservice@lkharburg.de

Jugendamt

Frau Richard – (Social worker)

Herr Schwarz (Supervisor)

Frau Stiels (Department Head)

Schloßplatz 6

21423 Winsen (Luhe)

Telephone: 04171 693-480

E-Mail: jugend+familie@lkharburg.de

To whom it may concern:

I am writing to enquire as to why a government office and a court took action against a family that was not even living under their jurisdiction. Are you seriously trying to justify this with the independence of the judiciary?

A family that no longer had their official residence in Germany was prohibited by a court from leaving the country. I was not aware that German people needed permission to leave the country

Wir bitten dringend im Namen der Familie Sontowski, die Beschlüsse

zurückzunehmen und den Antrag des Jugendamtes Winsen, abzuweisen.

Angela Sontowski is trying to ensure that her son remains healthy and gets an education, which has forced her to find a new home outside Germany

While she was living in Germany, she was offered no appropriate alternative
tuition for her child, whose chronic illness was attested to by doctors! She
neither violated compulsory schooling laws, nor was she endangering her child. To the contrary, this is a terrible indictment of the neglectful behaviour of government officials, who failed to implement any administrative measures correctly.

Not one fine was imposed on this family, who were merely threatened with fines. No alternatives were offered, and all the doctor' certificates were regarded with doubt. A judge felt that the „lightest touch" measure would be to prohibit the family from moving, rather than finding out the facts for herself.

I ask you to look into this matter to the best of your ability.

Yours Sincerely,

[elise1mds]

Time Magazine had an article on this yesterday (even though they timestamped it March 8?): http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1968099,00.html

It does set an interesting precedent. I'm surprised it's already receiving national press, but it'll be interesting to see the implications in the coming months.