Anguilla now has two pieces of legislation which have modernised the way the Civil Registry is created and maintained. This has been done through the automation or computerisation of births, deaths, marriages and adoption records as from the first of this month.
The enabling measures are the Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages (Amendment) Act 2018 and the Adoption of Children (Amendment) Act, 2018. Both pieces of legislation were passed in the Anguilla House of Assembly last week and have been assented to by Governor Tim Foy, OBE.
It means that persons applying for the abovementioned documents will now be issued with digital certificates instead of the customary hand-written certificates. They will be receiving a computer printout with all the necessary security features including a watermark. For this new and modern service, there has been an increase of fees from EC$20.00 to EC$25.00.
The changeover to the new system has been in progress for over ten years and has now been brought to fruition under the leadership of Ms. Ivenia Benjamin, Senior Magistrate, Head of the Judicial Department and Registrar General of Births, Deaths, Marriages and Adoptions.
When the new system was first announced, Ms. Benjamin told The Anguillian:
“In Anguilla, our civil registration system dates as far back as September 1881 to the present. However, our records are kept in hand-written register books, many of which are fading and some have dry-rotted and had to be re-written over the years.”
She further explained that the modernising of the civil registry and vital statistics was firstly to preserve the integrity of Anguilla’s records and secondly to catch up with some Caribbean islands and the rest of the developed world.
The Registrar General continued: “Civil registration brings multiple benefits. An individual’s right to be counted at both extremes of life is fundamental to social inclusion. Birth and Marriage Certificates, for example, are breeder documents used in the process of obtaining citizenship and for determining lineage and rights to property inheritance. This is where a loved one dies intestate, while death registration and certification are required prerequisites for burial, re-marriage, of the repatriation of corpses abroad.”
Ms Benjamin has expressed high praise for the team of persons who worked tirelessly over the past ten years to bring the project to fruition.
