Dominican birth certificates will not require legalization and will not expire

Santo Domingo.– As of Monday, 5 April, the records of the Civil Status will not need to be legalized by the Central Electoral Board (JCE), as is currently the case, the electoral body reported Monday after specifying that at the beginning the measure will be executed as a Pilot Plan.

With the presentation of the project “Elimination of the Legalization of Civil Status Records (ETLA)” before parties, groups and political movements, civil society and the media, the president of the JCE, Román Jáquez Liranzo, stated that it will allow citizens to obtain their certificates validated in any of the 165 Civil Status offices.

“This project is the beginning of many that will lead us every day to bring service to citizens, because now the JCE slogan  is that it is the service who must travel, not the citizen,” said Jáquez Liranzo.

With the start-up of this project, the entity fulfills one of the goals set at the beginning of the current management, to continue the process of modernization and efficiency by strengthening the validation and control of the certificates before its issuance, as well as the inclusion of the QR code, which will allow third parties to verify the content.

“The records do not have an expiration date; however, due to the requirements of other institutions at present, citizens must exhaust a process of legalization of civil records, which aims to certify that the data obtained is correct and valid. This process can only be carried out in 8 service centers, because the official offices could only issue the records and the citizen take them to legalize, which makes it a long, expensive and tedious process,” said Jáquez.

According to the JCE, the new service will be available at the centers in the National District and San Francisco de Macorís in Duarte province, as well as at the offices of the first and 10th districts of the capital’s National District, at the 7th District of Santo Domingo North, the 1st and 2nd circumscription of San Francisco de Macoris and the 3rd District in Santiago de los Caballeros.