The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Passport Office has been inundated with questions from people affected by a landmark citizenship ruling who cannot yet apply for a passport because their father is not on their birth certificate.

 Chief passport officer Kingsley Smith said 300 passport applications had been approved for those affected by the ruling.

 “People are coming in every day, making applications,” he said. “It’s not a heavy number, but we’re getting there. I believe a lot of persons’ father’s names are not on the birth certificate, and hence the reason why the numbers are not that much greater.”

 The Privy Council in May affirmed that children born out of wedlock to Bahamian men are Bahamians at birth regardless of the mother’s nationality.

The Passport Office began accepting applications from many of these people on June 26.

 However, those without their father on their birth certificate are still waiting for the government to finalise its rules so they can apply and get their document.

 “There is no legislation needed,” Attorney General Ryan Pinder said yesterday. “It’s constitutional citizenship. The passport rules have been drafted, and the Passport Office has been issuing passports where the Bahamian father is on the birth certificate.”

 “The Ministry of Health is working on protocols for DNA testing in situations where the father is not on the birth certificate.”

 In the meantime, according to Mr Smith, the Passport Office has been getting calls from people wanting to know when they can apply and get a passport.

 “That’s the second part of the Privy Council ruling that the government now has to implement...and obviously, you would’ve heard the attorney general said before that there’s checks and balances that have to be done,” Mr Smith said.

 “And he would’ve mentioned also the fact that DNA testing would have to be done for persons who said they have fathers by an affidavit, and so that part of it hasn’t been implemented, and so we’re still awaiting the government.”