Birth and death registry virtually useless after Supreme Court ruling - Prof Gyampo

Following the Supreme Court's unanimous decision that a birth certificate cannot be used as a form of identification to establish the identity of the bearer, renowned Political Scientist at the University of Ghana, Prof Ransford Gyampo has questioned the relevance of the birth and death registry.

Speaking in an interview with GhanaWeb, Prof Gyampo said the birth and death registry already existed by name, therefore, their plight only became worse after this ruling as they may be rendered useless.

He adds that "The Birth and Death Registry will only be an avenue where people will pretend to be working and the state will pretend to be paying them.If at the end of the day, the birth certificates almost means nothing, then who will go there to ask for a birth certificate?”

“So what will be the relevance of birth certificates at birth? Elsewhere, birth certificates are issued within 24 hours of birth and in one month, it serves as a form of identification for the issuance of passport to a child born. Is this practice too sophisticated for us to copy?"

He said the flaws with birth certificates could have been sorted out rather than rendering it useless by the apex court.

Background

The Supreme Court in a unanimous decision declared that a birth certificate cannot be used as a form of identification to establish the identity of the bearer.

The court believed that a birth certificate does not link the holder of the information on the certificate hence it cannot be used as a form of identification which qualifies a person to be registered on to Ghana’s Voters’ Register.

It was the opinion of the court that a birth certificate does not provide evidence of a person’s citizenship and, therefore, does not satisfy Article 42 of the 1992 Constitution which lays down the qualification for a person to be registered as a voter in Ghana.

The court gave the decision in a consolidated suit filed by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and one Mark Takyi-Banson, challenging the decision of the Electoral Commission (EC) to compile a new register of voters.