Error of the registrar: The story of a Roma boy with a girl’s name

Katerina Brynzachka changed the name of her son, so that he finally have a male name, only at the request of the school. They said that they could not enroll her boy, because according to the birth certificate, he was a girl.

In 2004, the department of civil registration of Mukachevo City Department of Justice made a mistake in the book of birth records, indicating that a citizen Brynzachka Katerina Ernestivna was born on August 4, 2004. As seen from the medical birth certificate of Mukachevo District hospital, on August 4, 2004 in the maternity ward, a citizen Brynzachka Katerina gave birth to a baby boy. While issuing the birth certificate, the department of civil registration of Mukachevo City Department of Justice erroneously indicated that a girl – Brynzachka Katerina Ernestivna – was born on 04.08.2004, that is made a wrong entry.

Brynzachka Katerina personally appealed to the Department of Civil Registry Office with the application for amending the record in the prescribed form, but the head of the Department of Civil Registry Office in Mukachevo refused to accept this application.

On behalf of Brynzachka Katerina, lawyers appealed to the Transcarpathian Regional Administrative Court to declare the actions of the department of civil registration in refusing to make amendments to the birth record unlawful and to oblige the Department of Civil Registration Office to amend the birth record, to correct the sex of the child from "female" to "male", the child’s first name from "Katerina" to "Yuriy", the patronymic name from "Ernestivna" to "Ernestovych."

The Administrative Court issued a ruling in which the actions of the department of state civil registration in the city of Mukachevo are declared illegal and the Department of the Civil Registration Office is ordered to amend the birth record.