----- Original Message -----
From: "M Mascarenhas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> A few days later, while I was fighting off all the line cutters at the
Civil
> Registrar in the queue for applying for birth certificates (which is,
> thankfully, shorter than the queue for reconnecting your telephone), I met
a
> mechanic friend of mine who told me he was migrating to Portugal. He was
> very excited about his plans. I asked him how long it had taken for him to
> process his papers for a Portuguese passport. A few months, he said, and I
> was so distracted by his reply, that one of the cutters managed to slip in
> ahead of me. The mechanic confided that the entire process had been
> expedited because he paid an agent in Lisbon 500 USD to follow up on that
> end. That's interesting, I thought, because one of my friends paid a
lawyer
> around that amount almost four years ago to do the same thing, and she
still
> hasn't managed to get her documentation in order. She told me her lawyer
is
> a former High Court judge from Margao, now residing in Lisbon. Now, why a
> High Court judge would leave his job in Goa to fiddle around with passport
> papers in Portugal (especially when he clearly isn't very good at it), is
> beyond me. If you ask me, that surely qualifies for contempt more than
> Arundhatti Roy's dabblings in polemics. Personally, I wish Roy would give
up
> this Noam Chomsky impersonation and stick to fiction which is her forte,
but
> that's another story.
It is interesting what M. Mascarenhas writes about her mechanic friend and
the
expediting of matters for "process his papers for a Portuguese Passport" at
this
end.
There are are lots of Goans, either former Judges from post 61 Goa or
laywyers/solicitors, or even lay people, who help the Goans to get their
births and marriages registered at the "Conservatoria dos Registos Centrais"
in Lisbon. Only after the birth is registered and with the presentation of
a birth certificate issued by the said Conservatoria can an ID be obtained
and only then the passport.
The time it takes for a file ("processo") to be finalized can take ages or
can
take just a year or a few months. It is not fair to give an idea that there
is some "underhand" business going on. I have helped , mind the word,
helped many Goans and taken care of the filing of their papers at the
"Conservatoria". Some have moved quickly and the others haven't and there
are
valid reasons for that. There are many discrepancies, either in the names of
the person, in the parents' names or places of birth or in the Resident
Certificates submitted and when the interested parties are requested to get
the divergency certificates issued or obtain the relevant document
corrected it just takes them ages.
I have an example where somebody (born in Goa prior to 1961) who submitted
his papers at the Portuguese Consulate in Goa in June 1999 and when I
happened to be in Goa asked me to do the follow up in Lisbon - which I did,
had his file "appreciated" only in the year 2000 because the number
attributed to the file is ------/00 and had his birth registered in October
2001 . I
did not charge him anything, and I did not pay anyone anything to make his
file "move". I don't have any important people within the "Conservatoria",
and even if I did I would be the last one to use my influence.
When I feel that there is incompetence from the part of the Government
officers, I write to the Ministers, as I have on several occasions. I have
complained to the Minister for Law when things did not move at the
"Conservatoria". I have complained to the Consular Services of the Foreign
Misnistry of Portugal about the "affairs" at the Portuguese Consulate in Goa
and I can tell you I have had very satisfactory replies and solution of the
cases presented. And I have paid nothing and charged nothing.
I have advised the people, who have come to me asking me to take up their
cases, to send direct e-mails to the corresponding Ministries and I give
below the addresses:
MNE (Ministerio dos Negocios EStrangeiros [Foreign Affairs Ministry]) - AC e
CP - Direccao Geral de Accao Consular e Comunidades Portuguesas
E-mail Address(es):
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Gabinete do Ministro da Justi�a (Law Ministry)
E-mail Address(es):
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Conservatoria dos Registos Centrais
E-mail Address(es):
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Anyone can write to them in English and you will definitely get a reply, but
in Portuguese.
I mentioned of a case that moved fast even to my surprise and this was due
to the fact that documents came via the consulate, duly certified in every
sense.
Now I have a case of 1990. In this case a lady. Her papers and her husband's
papers were submitted by me in Nov. 1990. The husband's filed moved fast and
he
had the birth registration completed in July 91, marriage registered October
91 and even the son got his birth registerd by July 94. But the lady is
still to get hers. And do you know why?
Incomplete names here and incomplete names there. And this is what I wrote
to her lately:
".........
it has been so "typical" of every Goan, save rare exceptions, including my
family. Everytime that the ball is in their court they just keep hugging it
and sleep with it, until one day they just wake up and find the ball under
their bedsheet and then they shoot it with all their might to the other end
and they expect the adversary to shoot it back even before the ball has had
time to reach the other court!!!!! Amazing, is it not?"
I cannot accept that there is place for bribery at the top level at the
"Conservatoria".
So if M Mascarenhas could kindly get more information from her mechanic
friend, only about the dates of submission of documents and where submitted,
I think the netters would be greatly pleased. There is no access to the
files
to any and everyone and everytime a Goa related file is accessed the act is
duly
registered. So any "investigation" on why it moved fast can easily be
initiated as long as there are proofs that it did .
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