Possessing birth certificate doesn’t make you a Ghanaian-Supreme Court rules

The Supreme Court has declined the use of a birth certificate as evidence of Ghanaian citizenship.

Per reports by Ghanareport.com, it was the unanimous position of the seven justices after they pondered over a suit brought by a private citizen by name, Mark Takyi Banson.

Mr. Takyi Banson, the plaintiff, is said to have wanted the Supreme Court to compel the Electoral Commission to accept a birth certificate as satisfactory identification for registering to get a new voter ID card before the 2020 general elections.

According to the Supreme Court, “the birth certificate is not a form of identification. It does not establish the identity of the bearer. Nor does it link the holder with the information on the certificate.”

Nevertheless, the judgment gets even more damning as the judges marked it as even worse than the National Health Insurance (NHI) card as it was rejected by the Supreme Court back in 2016, as an ID for registering for a voter’s ID card.

The Supreme Court declared the NHI card only identified the person by face and name but “makes no disclosure about the holder’s identification….and thus fails to meet the citizenship restriction test.”

While the Supreme Court rejects the birth certificate as proof of citizenship, the document is used by the Passport Office for granting a passport.

The Electoral Commission accepts the passport as proof of citizenship but not the birth certificate which is used to produce a passport.

But the funny thing is here is that the National Identification Authority which issues the Ghana card accepts a birth certificate as proof of citizenship.

The EC accepts the Ghana card as proof of citizenship but not the document which the NIA used to grant the Ghana card.

Amidst the court declaring the birth certificate as worse than the NHI in proving citizenship, it raises serious questions about the work of the Birth and Death Registry and proper document that certifies a person to be Ghanaian.

See excerpts of the Court’s full judgment below: