Dear Mrs Macaulay,

I am writing on behalf of my husband and the mother of his first-born daughter who’s now 17. We are seeking advice on what would need to be done in order to change the daughter’s last name to her father’s. My husband and I are currently living in the Cayman Islands; the mother and daughter are in Jamaica. I have been in contact with the mom who is willing and able to proceed with any information to help with this change. If possible, could you say what would happen and be needed in order to make the name change? The father is not on the birth certificate, was not entered in the birth records, and did not attest to being the father at birth, or after birth. He and the child’s mother are willing to do a DNA test. We have gathered that this requires them to go to court. He has also been financially supporting her from she was a year old.

I applaud you all for your intent to ensure that this child, at last, would have the surname she should have had from the date when her birth was registered. It is her right to have her father recorded and registered as such in her birth records. It is a pity this was not done before, but it is very good that you all now wish to rectify the situation.

You all must act very quickly; in fact, immediately, before her 18th birthday. Her mother must go to the Family Court in her parish with a certified copy of her daughter’s birth certificate and inform the clerk that she needs to make an urgent application for a declaration of paternity and for orders that it be entered in her daughter’s birth records so she would be able to thereafter obtain a birth certificate with her father’s name and particulars entered therein. The fact that you and your husband reside in the Cayman Islands does not bar such an application being made to the court here.

If both biological parents attest that your husband is, in fact, the child’s father, there is no need to have a DNA test done. Once a putative father accepts a child as his, such an admission is accepted by the court, with no need for a DNA test in declaration of paternity cases. This is clearly not needed unless your husband doubts his paternity after all the years he factually accepted this and was, and is, providing maintenance for his daughter.

The surname is something his daughter is legally entitled to have. I have referred to the need for her mother to go to the Family Court immediately to make her application for a declaration of paternity with the father named as the respondent. The application must be supported by the mother’s affidavit in support, which should contain the facts of the relationship they had together and which resulted in the pregnancy and the birth of their daughter. She must state why the father was not named when the baby’s birth was being reported, and why no steps were taken to do so before now. She must also state the fact that he was and is providing maintenance for their daughter, and she can state that he now wishes his name and particulars to appear in the child’s birth records and so does she, and that you as his wife agrees with this. She should also state that whenever he wishes to have access to his child he can do so.

The mother can also add in her affidavit that the father, your husband, is willing to have a DNA test done if the court requires this. All proceedings in the Family Court are free, including for the clerk’s assistance in the preparation of the mother’s application and her affidavit.

After the father receives the application and the mother’s affidavit in support, he must reply and state if he agrees with the facts stated by the mother about their relationship and the pregnancy and the birth of their daughter and why his name and particulars were not entered in her birth records. He must also state clearly that the child is his daughter and he wants his name and particulars to be entered in her birth records. He would have to arrange for his reply to be done and sworn to before the Jamaican consul (if there is one there), or a notary public, and returned as quickly as possible to be filed in the court.

As your husband is in the Cayman Islands, if he cannot come to Jamaica to appear before the court in person at the hearing, he should prepare or have a solicitor prepare an application for him to be permitted to appear online on the day and at the time of the hearing. When the oral hearing is completed, the judge will announce the conclusion of the proceedings by granting and pronouncing the declaration of paternity and also the orders necessary for the rectification of the child’s birth records and for a new birth certificate to be issued for her use.

I repeat again, as she is already 17 years old, all of you must move with urgent dispatch. I have suggested the Family Court for the application as the processes can, with an affidavit of urgency, move very quickly. The mother should take on the responsibility of the service of her documents on your husband, so that she can ensure that they are delivered to him by the quickest means possible and your husband must do his affidavit in reply, and he must also dispatch them to the court as quickly as possible.

When his daughter turns 18 she shall be an adult and then she would have to make the application herself, on own behalf, and ask her mother to assist by doing an affidavit of the facts as a witness supporting her child’s application. If her birthday is just around the corner then you should all be ready to assist her to do the necessary applications in the Family Court.

One last thing, whether her mother or the child herself makes the applications for the declaration and the orders relating to the rectification of her birth records, the applicant (mother or daughter herself) must ask for at least two or three certified copies of the court order. One would have to be taken to the Registrar of Births and Deaths Office for them to effect the rectification of the records and for them to issue the certified copy of the child’s birth certificate.

I hope I have clarified what needs to be done and that all you adults will ensure that this child obtains the surname she is entitled to have had from her birth, whether by her mother applying, or she herself applying if her 18th birthday occurs too soon.

All the very best.

Margarette May Macaulay is an attorney-at-law, Supreme Court mediator, notary public, and women’s and children’s rights advocate. Send questions via e-mail to
allwoman@jamaicaobserver.com
; or write to All Woman, 40-42 1/2 Beechwood Avenue, Kingston 5. All responses are published. Mrs Macaulay cannot provide personal responses.