Presumed dad wants paternity test

DEAR MRS MACAULAY,

A woman I used to be involved with had a child back in 2009 who she claimed is my child. I found out that the child doesn’t have my surname on her birth certificate, yet the woman insisted that she is mine. Basically, everyone is saying she is my child. I would like a paternity test to be done to prove or disprove same.

Can you tell me how I can go about getting this procedure done through the courts? The mother of the child is consenting to it also.

It is a good thing that you and the mother of this child have now decided to do what you both should have done ages ago in the best interests of the child. This child has been the victim of the irresponsibility of her mother and her possible father as she has been deprived of her fundamental right to bear the surname she was entitled to have from her birth. Her mother did nothing at the time of the birth, or in the years following it, to ensure that you, the person she claimed is her child’s father, was named in her report of the birth of her child as the father, so that at least that would have been on the birth certificate. She left her child in the position of bearing another surname rather than yours, and so denied her child a relationship with her purported father and her real identity. It is also a fundamental legal right of a child to have a relationship with the father and paternal relatives. Anyway, as I said, it is good that you both have now agreed that this situation ought to be rectified.

It is a straightforward process which either of you could do and should have done before now. So I suggest that you act as quickly as possible, and if you are indeed the child’s father, ensure that she bears your name and build a parental relationship with her.

You should go to the Family Court which serves the parish in which they live and inform them in the court’s office that you wish to make an application for a declaration of paternity and for consequential orders to be made if the result is that you are indeed the father of the child. After your application has been prepared by a clerk of the court and it has been served on the mother of the child and you both attend court on the designated day of the hearing, you should then, during the hearing, inform the judge that you wish to have a DNA test done. Then the clerk would inform you what you have to do and where you have to go and also inform the mother that she must take her daughter on the day and time fixed for the test to be done at the designated laboratory as ordered.

You would be directed to collect a letter from the court’s office, which you must take with you for the test to be done and the results sent to the court. The court would also fix, on the same day, another date when you and the mother should again appear in court to be informed of the result of the DNA test. If the test determines that you are the father, you should then and there ask for an order for the child’s birth records to be rectified with the entry on them of your paternity and for an order that the child’s surname be changed to yours by the Registrar of Births and Deaths (RGD).

You must ask when you can collect certified copies of the declaration and orders made by the judge from the office, one certified copy of which you or the mother must take to the RGD to ensure that they act on it and make the necessary entries on your child’s birth records and issue a new birth certificate. You should ensure that you and the mother have at least one certified copy each. So ask for the number of copies you shall need. You shall, thereafter, be entitled to all your paternal rights and assume those obligations towards your daughter.

If the DNA test result is that you are not the father, then you would have disproved the mother’s claims, which I trust would not be the case. You would, in such a circumstance, have no paternal rights over or obligations towards the child.

Please note that you do not need to have a lawyer to make your application for a declaration of paternity, unless you choose to retain one to act for you in the proceedings. In fact, the majority of these applications are done in person by mothers and some purported fathers.

I hope I have met your query and that you will act as soon as possible to ensure that the best interests of the child are upheld by you and her mother before she gets older. All the very best to you all.

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.

DISCLAIMER:

The contents of this article are for informational purposes only and must not be relied upon as an alternative to legal advice from your own attorney.