At 68, a man decided to correct an error in his birth date: why the Civil Registry Office refused
An error in a birth record can haunt a person for decades. Even if the original medical documents are no longer preserved, this does not mean that correcting incorrect information is impossible. The Saksahansky District Court of Kryvyi Rih explained that under such circumstances, a person has the right to apply to the court, which can establish the inaccuracy of the record and oblige the Civil Registry Office to make the appropriate changes.
The court established the inaccuracy of the applicant’s birth record in the civil status register and obliged the state civil registration authority to amend the record by correcting the birth date.
Case circumstances
The applicant turned to the court after the Central-City Department of the State Civil Registration Office in Kryvyi Rih refused to make changes to his birth record dated January 11, 1958.
The Civil Registry Office stated that they could not make changes to the record because the primary source document confirming the applicant’s birth date was missing. The medical documentation, on the basis of which the birth was originally registered, was no longer preserved due to the expiration of the storage period, which made it impossible to verify the correctness of the initial record.
Disagreeing with this, the applicant appealed to the court. He claimed that an error was made in the birth date during the state registration of his birth. To support his arguments, he submitted a number of documents, including a permanent residence permit, pension certificate, driver’s license, marriage certificate, an extract from the territorial community register, and other documents that all indicated the same birth date. The applicant also referred to the possibility of confirming these circumstances with testimonies from his brothers.
Court’s position
The court noted that the legislation provides for the possibility of making changes to civil status records both by the Civil Registry Office and based on a court decision. If the registration authority refuses to make changes, a person has the right to apply to the court with a claim to establish the inaccuracy of the record.
In doing so, the court referred to the Law "On State Registration of Civil Status Acts," the Rules for Making Changes to Civil Status Records, clarifications from the Plenum of the Supreme Court of Ukraine, and the legal position of the Supreme Court set out in the ruling dated February 17, 2021, in case No. 635/4947/20.
The court emphasized that in such cases, the subject of consideration is not the legality of the Civil Registry Office’s refusal, but whether the record indeed contains incorrect information. If this is confirmed by evidence, the court may establish the inaccuracy of the record and oblige the Civil Registry Office to make the appropriate changes.
The court also noted that after the refusal of the Civil Registry Office and in the absence of primary medical documentation, the judicial procedure is the only effective way to protect the applicant’s right to have accurate information entered into the birth record.
What the court decided
The court fully satisfied the claim.
By decision in case 214/2291/26, the fact of inaccuracy in the birth record regarding the applicant’s birth date was established, and the Central-City Department of the State Civil Registration Office in Kryvyi Rih was obliged to make the appropriate changes to birth record No. 5 dated January 11, 1958, correcting the birth date to the correct one.
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