Woman seeks correction to birth certificate following gender surgery

A woman who was born a man and underwent gender reassignment surgery yesterday filed a constitutional application in the Civil Court against the Attorney General and the Director of Public Registry.

Nadia Hili explained that her birth certificate showed her as Joseph, a male born in 1968.

She had requested the director to correct her birth certificate so that her civil status registration would conform to her new female status but the director had strangely refused the request despite recent judgments delivered by the Constitutional Court.

Hili claimed that this refusal, coupled with the fact that Maltese law did not provide for the exigencies of transsexuals, had caused her to suffer both emotional and legal problems.

These were tantamount to a violation of her fundamental human right to protection of family life and right to marry and form a family, as protected by the European Convention on Human Rights.

The European Court of Human Rights had, in a recent case decided against the United Kingdom, ruled that the state was bound to recognise transsexuals and to provide them with all rights as though they had been born of the opposite sex.

These rights included the right to marry.

Hili declared that the Marriage Act specified that marriages had to take place between a man and a woman, and she submitted that for the purposes of this legislation she ought to be considered as a female.

Hili requested the court to declare a violation of her fundamental rights, to declare that she was a woman in terms of the Marriage Act, to order that her birth certificate be amended to reflect the change in name and sex and to provide her with a remedy.

Dr José Herrera and Dr David Camilleri signed the application.