‘You have the right to name your own child’

The claim was made as an unmarried couple applied for a judicial review of the current registration system which has prevented them giving their daughter her father’s surname. Dr Elena Moran and Gary Kemp argue that the Registrar’s department has no legal basis for requiring the mother’s name to be entered on registration of ‘illegitimate’ babies. Their daughter is officially registered as Claudia Moran, but is known as Claudia Kemp. Advocate John Kelleher, for the couple, said that the stance taken by the Registrars of St Helier was ‘flying in the face’ of the law.