Chicago

By ED McMANUS

IT HAS BEEN nearly a year since 12-year-old Walter Polovchak ran away from home, and the issues involved in his case are no closer to resolution than on that day last July when Walter decided to live with his cousin.

Walter is the son of Michael and Anna Polovchak, a Ukrainian couple who immigrated to the United States late in 1979 and settled in Chicago. After only a few months here, Michael Polovchak concluded that he should have stayed in the Soviet Union and announced his intention to return. But Walter had grown to like America and said he wanted to stay here, and his cousin, Walter Gusiev, 24, invited him to move in with him. Michael Polovchak called the police and reported Walter as a runaway, and the legal tangle began.

In most cases with runaway juveniles, the child would have been returned to his parents, especially when, as in the Polovchak case, there are no allegations of abuse or neglect. But, the juvenile court awarded temporary custody to the cousin. Simultaneously, the State Department granted asylum to the boy. A few weeks later, the court placed Walter in a foster home pending further disposition of the case. (Walter's sister Natalie, 17, also left home, but the parents have not sought her return.) Certainly, if the Polovchak family had decided to move to Los Angeles or New York, the state would not have defended Walter's right to stay behind. Anti-Soviet feelings have played an important part in the case.

The central questions which arose were:

•  Does the state have any right to separate a child from its parents, absent evidence of mistreatment? Isn't the family sacred? Those are the questions asked by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is representing Michael and Anna Polovchak.

•  Does not the state have an obligation to respect the wishes of a 12-year-old who has had an opportunity to live on both sides of the Iron Curtain and chooses to live in America? Don't kids have some rights? Is not a child at 12 mature enough to make such a choice?

There is another element that has significantly complicated the dispute. That is the fact that the case has received widespread publicity and has become a controversy between the Soviet Union and the U.S., raising questions about how Walter — a person who has openly criticized life in the Soviet Union — might be treated by the Soviet government if he returned.

At this writing, the Illinois Appellate Court is about to rule on the Polovchak's appeal of the juvenile court decision denying them custody. Whichever side loses, the case will surely go to the state Supreme Court and ultimately to the U.S. Supreme Court. Also pending, in U.S. District Court at Chicago, is a suit filed by the ACLU challenging the granting of asylum to Walter.

Judge Joseph C. Mooney of the Juvenile Court declared Walter to be a "minor in need of supervision" after a youth officer swore that the boy was "beyond the control of his parents." Under Illinois law, the court is given considerable discretion to make decisions "in the best interests of the child."

The Soviet foreign ministry has called the events in Chicago "thoroughly illegal." It denounced "the entire unseemly undertaking . . . evidenced by the unprecedented absurd decision taken with the knowledge and by agreement of the U.S. Department of State to grant asylum to [Walter]." One Soviet publication called Walter a "hostage."

We can imagine a similar outcry by Americans if such a state of affairs occurred in the Soviet Union — if an American family moved there, became disenchanted, and decided to return to the United States, only to be informed by the Soviet police that their son could not come back with them.

The case presents a real dilemma. Legally, the ACLU's argument is hard to counter: The state has no business interfering in a family. Emotionally, one can take either side: How tragic that the Polovchaks would lose their son, or that Walter would be forced to leave America. Realistically, Walter probably would face a bleak future in the Ukraine after all that has happened.

Considering how slowly the case is moving, it may never be resolved by the courts. If Michael and Anna Polovchak really want to return to the Ukraine, they may give up and go without Walter. □

32/June 1981/Illinois Issues