The consul intervenes, Indi is still alive

It will be the last resort, scheduled for 1 pm today, to decide between the life and death of Indi Gregory. Yesterday the judges of the English Supreme Court first extended for 2 hours and then suspended until this last verdict the sentence with which they gave the green light to the deployment of machines that are keeping alive the 8-month-old girl who suffers from a serious mitochondrial disease. Double stop triggered after the urgent request presented by the Italian consul of Manchester, Matteo Corradini, who, by virtue of granting Italian citizenship to the girl, was able to refer to the procedure foreseen in article 9 of the Hague Convention, contacting the competent Italian judge with his English counterpart.

Faced with the activation of this procedure, the English High Court yesterday decided first on a 2-hour extension and then suspended everything, sending the documents to the Court of Appeal for the final decision scheduled for this afternoon. Because, as established in that article of the international convention that regulates the protection of minors, one can “request the competent authority of the Contracting State of the minor’s habitual residence, directly or through the Central Authority of that State, to allow him to exercise the competence to adopt the protection measures they deem necessary”. Last Monday, the Council of Ministers granted Italian citizenship to the newborn precisely to allow Indi’s parents to request admission to the Bambino Gesù pediatric hospital in Rome.

But the English High Court also denied the child’s return to his home in Ilkeston, Derbyshire. Now, lawyers for the Gregory family also announce that “the Presidency of the Italian Council of Ministers has written to the British Ministry of Justice, as required by article 32 of the 1996 Hague Convention”. Article that, in fact, provides for the possibility of requesting “to examine the opportunity to adopt measures designed to protect the person or property of the minor”. In the hope, as lawyer and former senator Simone Pillon wrote, “to obtain a regulation of jurisdiction between Italy and the United Kingdom, as provided for by the Convention. The best interest of the minor is to live and not die.” According to the former parliamentarian, in fact, “there is nothing more difficult than arguing the obvious: pages and pages to explain that children cannot be allowed to die. In a normal world, two letters would be enough: No.” But there are still “hours of hope for Indi Gregory”, highlights the non-profit association Pro Vita & Famiglia, which is very confident “in the possibility of transferring jurisdiction to the judge Italian.

Such a development has never occurred before in an end-of-life case involving a child in the UK.” The Convention – explains the spokesperson for the non-profit organization, Jacopo Coghe – concerns “competence, applicable law, recognition, enforcement and cooperation in matters of parental responsibility and measures for the protection of minors”. Doctors treating Indi at Queen’s Medical Center in Nottingham insist they can do nothing more for her. They think differently about Baby Jesus and are confident that they will have the opportunity to prove it. This afternoon we will know the judges’ final verdict, the one that will decide between Indi’s life and death.