Is My Child British Or An Illegal Immigrant

[Richard W]

If s_kates81 is a bachelor and not lying, the circumstances of Hello. I Need Help ! Serious Case, Steve (IndoSiam) or anyone are of concern to thousands in the UK, probably throughout the world. He believes he is not married because a false document was used to persuade the registrar to register his marriage.

(a) My wife and I married in Thailand. ( I used an agency to arrange the registration of our marriage in Thailand. © I swore out the declaration of freedom to marry, but I did not see it again after I handed it to the agency for them to legalise it. I met the agency immediately after swearing it - more precisely my fiancée met them in the consular section while I was swearing the declaration. (d) We registered our marriage at a district registration office on the outskirts of Bangkok. (e) At the conclusion of the registration, a representative of the agency passed one of the officials a non-empty A4-width airmail envelope.

Actions © and (e) may be different to what happened in s_kates81's story.

It would seem that if the agency produced their own standard fake declaration, rather than legalising my notarised declaration, and the A4 envelope simply contained the lawful fees, we are not married.

As far as I am aware, that creates the following chain of problems:

1. My wife and I have never been legally married.

2. My wife's indefinite leave to remain in the UK is null and void, so she has never been settled in the UK.

3. Our child, born in the UK, has no right to be British because of me, because of Problem 1. (The concession in Section 9.9.3 of the Nationality Instructions does not apply, because she was born in the UK!)

4. Our child, born in the UK, do not acquire citizenship by virtue of ther mother being settled here, because by Problem 2, she isn't.

5. The child's British passports were obtained by misrepresentation, albeit innocent.

6. Returning to England after a trip aboard makes her an illegal immigrant.

While our marriage otherwise lasts, we can solve the problem by remarrying, but we were advised against doing so when my wife didn't trust a Thai marriage to be valid in England. It seems her doubts were well placed!

Scots law seems to be able to cope with the concept of a marriage of uncertain validity; English law doesn't.

How do I find out if we are married? We plan to be in Thailand for a few weeks later this year.

[john b good]

"How do I find out if we are married? We plan to be in Thailand for a few weeks later this year"

This bears out what most of us believe i.e. that nothing (or very little) here in Thailand is as it seems to be or should be.

One possible mistake in what you did (or the way you did it) was perhaps (no definately) as you can't really trust any of these people to carry out your wishes to the letter, is that you should have stayed with the documents all the way as they were being processed.

I guess that one way to find out if you are indeed married is to go to an Amphur and go through the motions of applying for a divorce. Theoretically you should get the answer "OK we can do the divorce or, alternatively be told 'BUT' you are not married"

If they say they can do the divorce then just tell them, oop's maybe we are not really sure if we want to go through and back out of it.

Sounds like a stupid suggestion doesn't it, but as there is no real logic to most things here it could be worth a shot.

What do you think "doc"

[dr_Pat_Pong]

Take the marriage papers to the Registrar at the original Amphur, and ask for his confirmation that all is kosher. It seems a hard road to hoe, for the agent to go to so much trouble, when doing it the proper way was just as easy. I hope that it all works out favourably for you

[Richard W]

Take the marriage papers to the Registrar at the original Amphur

What do you mean by 'marriage papers'?

The documents I had ready for the marriage were:

• Affirmation of freedom to marry - I have neither copy nor on-line master.
  
• Most recent payslip
  
• Court-stamped copy of decree absolute dissolving previous marriage.
  
• Letter confirming my employment - I haven't kept this.
  

I don't think the agency had any opportunity to invalidate my wife's documentation.

I can't remember whether more than the affirmation was passed over to the agent.

Taking the marriage certificate might help them locate their files. The marriage was in Bangkok in March 1999. My wife successfully updated her ID card in July 2003 in her home amphoe in Chiangmai province to show our surname, but she had the marriage certificate with her.

It seems a hard road to hoe, for the agent to go to so much trouble, when doing it the proper way was just as easy.

Faking the legalisation would save a few hundred baht, and avoid the hassle and cost of travelling to and waiting at the MFA.

What if I encounter the same staff as originally registered our marriage? I may get the response, 'I would have checked the documents properly. Don't worry.' Would the marriage be legal if the staff were in on the corner-cutting? Do I need to check that the MFA has a record of legalising the affirmation?

[manfromoz]

Depending on how much trouble you want to go too, you will find that once the Amphur stamped your documents saying that they were ok then it doesn't matter what happened before then to get the documents.

Th eAmphur has the responsibility to check and make sure everything is fine and once they accept it and stamp it then by an absolute decree all is ok.

You are married and your child and wife have whatever citizenship you have paperwork for.

[Richard W]

Depending on how much trouble you want to go too, you will find that once the Amphur stamped your documents saying that they were ok then it doesn't matter what happened before then to get the documents.

Th eAmphur has the responsibility to check and make sure everything is fine and once they accept it and stamp it then by an absolute decree all is ok.

You are married and your child and wife have whatever citizenship you have paperwork for.

Apart from the fact that we have no reason to believe anything is amiss, how does our case differ from that of s_kates81? His embassy has advised him that he is not married!

Your argument is what I would have believed. The story is that dodgy supporting documents render a marriage not voidable but void from the inception.

[dr_Pat_Pong]

Again ... go back to the original Amphur and see the Registrar. Your marriage papers are your wedding certificates. My feeling is that you are legally wedded.

[Khun ?]

Many children are born out of wedlock. Whats on the birth certificate of the child

[Richard W]

Many children are born out of wedlock. Whats on the birth certificate of the child

What I told the registrar in our town. The only check on what I said was the advance information that had come from the hospital. I'm not sure if you can tell now from the birth certificate whether a child was born legitimate. I believe the father will be recorded on the birth certificate if he reports the birth, whether or not he is married to the mother.

Other information was recorded which does not appear on the certificate. I think the registrar asked when we were married, but he did not ask to see a marriage certificate. One's word is generally accepted for such matters.

[Khun ?]

If you claim to be the father then i guess you are unless someone else can prove they are.

does the UK have common law marriage, you sound like in the event yours was not legal you may be able to register a common law marriage. Thats living together for a long period of time warrants the issue of a license.

[Richard W]

If you claim to be the father then i guess you are unless someone else can prove they are.

does the UK have common law marriage, you sound like in the event yours was not legal you may be able to register a common law marriage. Thats living together for a long period of time warrants the issue of a license.

The problem is that the legal status of the family depends on our marriage. Although the importance of marriage is reducing, the citizenship or residence status of the father is only relevant if the child is legitimate. I can't find any evidence that concessions for illegitimate children born overseas to British fathers extend to the UK! (Moreover, those concessions would be no use if she'd been born abroad in 2003, as the time limit for registration - massively tightened in 2002 - would have expired before I became aware of the possibility of a problem.) If our marriage were invalid, my daughter's rights would vanish as she was born after 1983, and my wife's status would not help because it would have been based on a false document.

At present, the only registrations of living together that I am aware of are for tax and social benefits. Cohabiting couples now have rights to move to the UK where before they would have had to be married.

One get out clause might be that an official's removing s_kates81's marriage record was an 'annulment other than by proceedings', in which case the same process in our case would have no legal effect in England, so my daughter would be OK and I think my wife would be too. This is an arcane detail of Section 46 of some Marriage Act (late 20th century, but not recent enough to be online), and Sections 47 to 49, which I haven't been able to track down, might cause problems.

[Richard W]

Again ... go back to the original Amphur and see the Registrar. Your marriage papers are your wedding certificates. My feeling is that you are legally wedded.

According to s_kates81:

BUT the real problem is that THE TIME THE AGENT PREPARED THE PAPERWORK FOR MARRIAGE REGISTRATION,HE FAKED THE PAPER FROM EMBASSY WHICH IS REQUIRED TO REGISTER MARRIAGE.It means that the marriage certificate is true,but the documents provided for it all are fake with fake stamps.

So how would the district registration office know whether our marriage was valid?

[dr_Pat_Pong]

Again  ...  go back to the original Amphur and see the Registrar. Your marriage papers are your wedding certificates.  My feeling is that you are legally wedded.

According to s_kates81:

BUT the real problem is that THE TIME THE AGENT PREPARED THE PAPERWORK FOR MARRIAGE REGISTRATION,HE FAKED THE PAPER FROM EMBASSY WHICH IS REQUIRED TO REGISTER MARRIAGE.It means that the marriage certificate is true,but the documents provided for it all are fake with fake stamps.

So how would the district registration office know whether our marriage was valid?

Believe it or not, the file is still in the Amphur. It will be thoroughly checked while you are there.

[manfromoz]

Sorry to have taken so long to get back I have been away up country. Let me say again, if the Amphur puts their stamp on the document it is deemed valid and they take responsibility for it. I know this because mine had some problmes with the translation (even though it was MFA certified) and the Amphur staff had a meeting and the head officer said she would change it, certify the change and once it was stamped it was her valid. As is the case with most legal documents in Thailand, if the head person gives it their stamp, then it is so.