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Quashed birth certificate/passport conditionality
– Lawyer who challenged requirement granted passport
Attorney -at- law, Saphier Husain-Subedar with his new passport.
Attorney -at- law, Saphier Husain-Subedar was awarded a new passport, several weeks after Chief Justice; Ian Chang delivered a ruling quashing the birth certificate requirement for passport applicants.
Last July, the police issued a release, which stipulated that passport applicants must produce a birth certificate issued within the last six months, before he/she can be eligible for an electronic machine readable passport.
The new passport requirement came to the fore after the Ministry of Home Affairs outlined that for integrity purposes, it is reinforcing its policy directive originally given to the Guyana Police Force.
However, Husain-Subedar challenged the immigration requirement in court describing it as “unconstitutional and invalid.”
The Attorney had taken the Chief Immigration Officer/ Commissioner of Police, Seelall Persaud to court asking that the decision to refuse birth certificates older than six months be overturned.
On June 18, Husain-Subedar, of Broom Hall, Mahaicony, East Coast Demerara, visited the Immigration Office in Camp Street, Georgetown with all the necessary documents to renew his passport but was rejected on the grounds that his birth certificate was not valid for said application, since it was issued in 2004/01/22 and not within the last six months.
Husain-Subedar said that he decided to file the case after Immigration Officer, Mr. Parris refused to accept his birth certificate, as part of the new Passport application.
The Chief Justice subsequently granted an order directed at the Commissioner/Chief Immigration Officer, his agent, every one of them to accept the birth certificate No.1 of Division /Centre 5 Mahaicony, issued on January 22, 2004, and consider Husain’s application to issue an electronic machine readable passport to him.
Husain-Subedar noted that the ruling clearly indicated that the entire birth certificate requirement has no legal basis.
The Ministry later corrected its position on the six months requirement “that with immediate effect applicants for passports and other travel documents will be required to present original birth certificates that were issued no less than two years prior to the date of submission of the applications.”
However, with subsequent lawsuits pending, the entire requirement was cancelled.
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