Dear Mrs Macaulay,

I went to renew my Jamaican passport the other day, and they refused to use my correct first name. My first name is Ann Marie (space, not hyphen), and the rep at the passport office refused to use it; they are telling me that Ann is my first name and Marie is my middle name. I told them that this is not the case and that Ann Marie is one name. This is not the first time I am renewing my passport, and I never had any issue with it before; this is about the fifth time I am renewing my passport.

The long and short of it is, in order for me to get my passport renewed, because I had to travel, I had to agree to have them use Ann as my first name and Marie as my middle name, even though I do have a middle name. What they did, is it lawful?

Thank you very much for your letter. It is very important in a democracy for citizens who are treated in a questionable manner, or whose affairs are dealt with in a questionable way by any public officer in a government office, to question and object and bring the matter to the attention of those in charge, or publicly, as you have done. Let me state at once, that you could have insisted that the officer bring the matter to the officer in charge, especially as you state that your passport had been issued in your real name and also renewed before this occasion.

The clear and short answer to your question of whether what was done to you was lawful, is that it was not lawful at all! It was completely wrong because no one has any lawful authority to alter a person’s chosen name or the spelling of it, and thereby your legal identity. The action was completely arbitrary and unlawful.

Your name is in law your intellectual property, and no alteration can be legally done without your consent, whatever the position held by the officer, or the work being performed by them.

You have the exclusive right and legal ability to change your name by deed poll after you attain your majority, and before that, your parents can do so. After birth your identity is disclosed to society from your birth certificate by the first names your parents chose for you, and your surname is derived from your family lineage, and by using these names, you establish your property in them and to society and the world for life, unless you change it by a deed poll (which would be your own choice.

No government officer or anyone else has the right to change a person’s name or alter its spelling. That right and authority belongs completely to you and no one else. If your name was altered because of typological error, even on your birth certificate, marriage certificate or death certificate, the correction can be done by an application to correct the error pursuant to the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, made to the Registrar General’s Department.

I think I have made it sufficiently clear that the officer who insisted and changed your first name so that your passport could only be issued with the incorrect spelling of your name, acted ultra vires because that officer breached your legal right by forcing their will and official position on you, as you needed the renewed passport urgently and so they abused their office and authority and breached your rights.

Your letter reminds me of an issue I had, after I received many complaints from married women and had several discussions with that same office some years ago, because they had arbitrarily decided to insert in married women’s passports, a statement that they were the lawfully married wives of their named husbands, and they based their position for doing so, on their reasoning that a married woman’s status changed from spinster to married after her marriage. They did not insert a similar statement in married men’s passports, and would not accept that what they were doing was discriminatory. I therefore took the matter to the then minister of security, who checked with them, and repeated their reason to me. I was therefore forced to use his own married status to demonstrate the discrimination by illustrating that after his own marriage, his status changed from bachelor to married man and yet they were not inserting a similar statement in married men’s passports, and as a good lawyer he recognised the discrimination immediately and took steps to stop the practice and it was stopped.

By your letter and this reply, we trust and hope that all officers at the Passport, Immigration and Citizenship Agency (PICA) shall be made to understand that they have no authority, legal or otherwise, to change any applicant’s name or the spelling of their names and that if they do so, it is wrong and unlawful.

What can you do now? Well the answer is clear. You should take your passport and birth certificate and any old expired passports back to PICA and insist on seeing the officer in charge and have them correct the illegal act, by issuing to you another passport at PICA’s or the officer’s cost, with your correct first name and surname thereon. Clearly you cannot be asked to pay again for the issue of a new passport on you correct and proper first name which the officer arbitraily altered unlawfully and forced you to take the passport issued by this wrongful act because you needed it that day

Please have them do this and enjoin the officer-in- charge to ensure that all their officers understand that they cannot legally interfere with applicants’ names or the spelling of their names, so that the office can avoid being wrong-footed and avoid further embarrassment. They have to correct the officer’s unlawful action and you should not be forced to use a name which is not yours and have an identity which is not yours and was forced on you.

I hope that you take the time to have them correct their egregious legal action and administrative misconduct.

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 private, personal responses.