The refusal of the Births and Deaths Registry to register certain Ghanaian names which it considers titles has landed the Registry in court.

Some citizens enraged by the order, are in court challenging the directive by the agency and the outcome could be “interesting”, private legal practitioner, Samson Lardy Anyenini hinted.

The order is seen not only as discriminatory but also opposes efforts to encourage Ghanaians to use local names to project their African identity.

The Registry had maintained, the use of local names like Nana, Torgbui, Nii, Maame, Junior which it says are titles, was not permissible by the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1965 (Act 301).

Samson Lardi Anyenini

But contributing to discussions on the Super Morning Show on Joy FM, Friday, January 26, 2018, Samson Lardy Anyenini who is also the Host of weekly news analysis programme Newsfile on JoyNews TV, said the ban does not find its place in the Act 1965 (act 301).

He strongly believes the decision could have arisen from a wrong interpretation of the law because observing from the attitude of the judges hearing the cases, “the Registrar of Births and Deaths will find it difficult justifying this position.”

Earlier, Sam Nartey of the Ghana Law Hub, a legal resource body, said the primary job of the Births and Deaths Registry is to record information provided by the public relating to births and deaths and not to determine which names they can or cannot register.

“They don’t have the power to do that…what they are doing is discriminatory”, Mr Nartey argued.

Listen to the discussion in the audio attached: