Birth certificates

The conditions for issuing a birth certificate are as follows:

The birth certificate is the first civil document to be issued to any individual because it embodies their legal existence.

There is a well-established procedure for establishing this, which varies depending on whether you are dealing with a newborn child aged between 0 and 90 days, or around 03 months (a simple and free case); between 91 and 180 days, or around 06 months (not a simple case); or a person aged over 06 months (a complicated and costly case).

First case: Declaration of birth and direct establishment of the birth certificate (simple and free of charge)

Children born between 0 and 90 days old (approximately 03 months)

In addition to the parents, any person who saw the child being born may declare his or her birth at a registrar's office (this may be at the Limbe Urban Community or at the local registry office).

In general, the normal, simple and easy time limit for declaring the birth of a newborn baby is 0 to 90 days (approximately 03 months). In theory, if the child is born in hospital, the doctor and nurses have 30 days to register the birth. After this deadline, and if this has not been done within 30 days of the birth, the child's parents or other witnesses have a further 60 days (around 02 months) to register the child's birth with the local registrar. In this case, the procedure is simple, easy and free. Everything is done at the local registry office (i.e. the Mairie of the town or village where the child was born).

To have a child's birth certificate drawn up, the law requires the parents or witnesses to produce any document that can identify them

It is one of the following parts:

These documents are used to fill in the birth registration form for the registrar. If the child's parents do not have one of the above-mentioned documents, they can still fill in the declaration form, without entering the nationality and identification document number.

Furthermore, only the birth declaration of a child born to legally married parents will contain information about the father. Otherwise (single mother, de facto spouse, divorcee, widow), the declaration of birth will contain no information about the father. However, the father, accompanied by the child's mother, the child and 02 witnesses, may acknowledge his child to the registrar. His details will then appear in the child's birth certificate.

Second case: issuing a birth certificate to a child between 91 days and 180 days old, i.e. between 03 and 06 months (start of the complication).

Once the simple time limit of 90 days (about 03 months) has passed, the parents or other witnesses must go to the courts to meet the Public Prosecutor at the court in the locality where the child was born to ask him to authorise them to draw up the birth certificate for the child, who is between 03 and 06 months old; this is called the requisition. The procedure is starting to become lengthy and will require skills, time, patience and money.

Third case: Issuing a birth certificate to a child over 06 months old or to any adult (complicated and costly)

Once the deadline of 180 days, i.e. 06 months, has passed, issuing a birth certificate to an individual becomes complicated and it will cost money to cover the costs of all the documents required and the services linked to this process.

In this case, a court judgment is required. This procedure is called a "suppletive judgment".

What are the steps involved in drawing up a birth certificate from a supplementary judgment?

1- Composition of an individual file
Before going to court to initiate the supplementary judgment procedure, there are a number of essential elements that need to be put together. To obtain a suppletive judgment, you must first prepare a complete file.

The file must include :

2-Tracking cases through the courts
Once the parents and their witnesses have filed their motions for supplementary judgment with the court, there are some important steps to follow:

3- Collect and present the form at the Mairie in the place of birth of the person concerned, and have a birth certificate drawn up in due and proper form.

Finally, it should be noted that it is important to withdraw the deed once it has been drawn up, so that your child can benefit from the various advantages it confers: sending him or her to school, etc.

All Cameroonians in the town of Limbé are required to declare the birth of their child to the Limbé Urban Community so that the civil registrar can draw up this official record free of charge on a register provided for this purpose following the declaration of birth.

These documents can be drawn up for :