Official seal.
Evidential value of entry or certificate.
Penalty for not duly registering births and deaths.
Penalty for destroying register book
Correction
of errors
in register. 37 & 38 Vict. c. 88, s. 36.
518
23.—(1) The Registrar General shall cause to be made a seal of the General Registrar office and shall cause to be sealed or stamped therewith all certified copies of entries given in the said office.
(2) Every entry and every certified copy of an entry in a registry book for the registration of births or of deaths shall be received as evidence of the birth or death to which the same relates without other or further proof of such entry : Provided that no such entry in a Post Register book shall be deemed proof of the birth or death to which it relates without other or further evidence thereof: Provided, also, that no certified copy purporting to be given in the said office shall be of any force or effect unless it is sealed or stamped as aforesaid, and unless the entry to which it relates either purports to have been signed by some person professing to be the informant and to be such person as required by this Ordinance to give information to a registrar concerning such birth or death, or purports to have been made upon a certificate from a magistrate or otherwise in pursuance of the provisions of this Ordinance, or, where more than twelve months have intervened between the day of a birth or death and the day of the registration of such birth or death, unless it purports to have been made with the consent and authority of the Registrar General.
24. Every person who,-
(1) being charged with the duty of registering births or deaths, refuses or, without reasonable excuse, omits to register any birth or death of which he has had due notice as aforesaid; or.
(2) having the custody of any register book or certified. copies thereof, or of any part thereof, carelessly loses or injures the same, or carelessly allows the same to be injured whilst in his keeping,
shall be deemed to have committed a breach of the provisions of this Ordinance.
25. Every person who wilfully destroys or injures, or causes to be destroyed or injured, any such register book or any part or certified copy of any part thereof, shall be guilty of felony, and shall be liable to imprisonment for any term not exceeding two years.
26. With regard to the correction of errors in registers of births or deaths, the following provisions shall have effect:
(1) no alteration in any such register shall be made except as authorised by this Ordinance;
(2) any clerical error which may be discovered in any such register shall, as soon as possible, be corrected by a registrar, who shall place his initials in the margin opposite the entry in which such error has been discovered;
(3) an error of fact or substance in any such register may be corrected by entry in the margin (without any alteration of the original entry) by a registrar on payment of the fee of one dollar and on production to him by the person requiring such error to be corrected