The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune News Editor

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

PRIME Minister Philip “Brave” Davis suggested his administration is leaning toward requiring genetic test results as proof of paternity for people expecting Bahamian citizenship after the Privy Council affirmed that children born to Bahamian men are citizens regardless of their mother’s nationality.

“We need to ensure that the daddy is the daddy and that the daddy knows,” Mr Davis said yesterday.

“The only way we’d know that is if we have some kind of a test.”

The Privy Council did not address how to determine paternity in its landmark; neither did Chief Justice Ian Winder when he ruled on the matter in 2020.

 The Status of Children Act outlines how one can prove paternity. Still, according to National Security Minister Wayne Munroe, KC, the law specifies that it can’t be used to establish citizenship.

 Government officials are uneasy about permitting traditional ways of establishing paternity suffice to obtain citizenship, such as using an affidavit signed by the purported father.

 Yesterday, Mr Davis suggested his administration is also questioning if birth certificates could suffice as proof of paternity.

 “There’s some presumptions that we need to discuss, some presumption that if there’s a birth certificate and it has the father’s name on it, there’s the assumption that he is the father,” he said. “But there are a lot of issues that have to be worked out.”

 Mr Davis said resolving the issue is not atop the government’s legislative agenda.

 “I’m awaiting my advice from the attorney general’s office on where we are going and I know his office is looking at what steps would be taken going forward,” he said. “But that’s not a priority at this time because of the court ruling. The court ruling right now says what the law is. The question is how it is to be enforced and affected. That is something that the AG’s office and his team are looking at right now as we speak.”