Reform Maryland's Grandparent Visitation Statute

Maryland's 2007 Grandparent Visitation Statute (GPV) under MD Family Law Article 9-102, must be codified to follow the recent Maryland Court of Appeals case law Koshko v Haining (January 12, 2007).

The present MD GPV statute states:

An equity court may:
1) consider a petition for reasonable visitation of a grandchild by a grandparent; and
2)if the court finds it to be in the best interests of the child, grant visitation to the grandparent.

The Maryland Court of Appeals recent oppinion in Koshko v Haining clearly states that, "the court, however, concluded, under strict scrutiny analysis, the the GVS was unconstitutionally applied to the Koshko's because the staute lacked sufficiently narrow tailoring to the states interest in children's welfare.....Strict scrutiny was triggered because the staute implicated the Koshko's fundamental right to parent.

With a 6-1 majority decision in the Maryland Court of Appeals, they ruled that the current GPV statute MUST contain a rebuttable presumption favoring parental decisions as to their children's best interests, AND to recognize a threshold finding under strict scrutiny, that a parent is unfit or there are exceptional circumstances (harm standard), BEFORE the "best interest" standard can be applied.

The present stautory language of the MD Family Law Article 9-102 (GPV) in light of The Koshko case law is deceptive and confusing to the courts of Maryland to uphold the Constitutional rights of parents decisions under the US Constitution and Maryland Declaration of Rights to decide who will and will not be around their children as it pertains to protecting their children's best interests and welfare.