Noajthan: I personally extremely strongly don't want to go by only my maiden name. As a child of a broken home, I've always dreamt of creating my own family, having been denied a family all my life. Now that I finally found a husband (well, nine years ago actually) I am being told that I have to be 'Miss' and the odd one out, with a different name from the rest of my family (even if I were to produce offspring they would have his name and I would be singled out) and that would be deeply painful. One of my main reasons for wanting my father's British nationality, after marriage that is, was to gain my husband's name and finally be part of something; instead for the past nine years of otherwise happy marriage I've been forced by my other country, the only one of which I currently hold citizenship, to have only my maiden name on my
passport because of that country's misguided policy of 'emancipating' people by denying them the right to choose their own identity (because my choice is viewed as 'patriarchal', they should choose instead of me: I don't see how this is 'empowering' other than in the way of making all women cut off their hair and wear trousers because long hair and skirts were the norm in the dark days of gender apartheid and are therefore automatically 'patriarchal'). So no, that's not an option for me, personally. I fought all these years to change the British nationality law to include me, and now that I've managed, what, am I supposed to change the naming laws of another country before I'm simply allowed to be part of a family?
This is, incidentally, even more painful because in my husband's country, husband and wife are legally required to have the same name. Therefore every time we travel there, which obviously we do frequently, I am declaring to every official who sees my
passport that I am not this man's wife, and I'm sure they're thinking 'of course he didn't marry that ugly gaijin'. It is deeply humiliating. I am being forced to broadcast an identity which I don't feel is mine while abjuring the one that I've always chosen.
Anyway. A bit off-topic, but this is the unnecessary result of bureaucrats' procrustean impositions on innocent crime-free people - treating them as criminals *in case* they want to commit crimes. It is my contention that this goes against the presumption of innocence, but I'm not a lawyer. The lawyer I spoke to pronounced this angle 'interesting', but added that vast monetary resources would be necessary to explore it fully.
ouflak1: it is my understanding that the UDHR is not legally binding. I'm sure there are better sources than this (I did have to dig them up for my PhD thesis so I'm reasonably sure they exist), but for now:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_ ... man_Rights
"Even though it is not legally binding, the Declaration has been adopted in or has influenced most national constitutions since 1948. It has also served as the foundation for a growing number of national laws, international laws, and treaties, as well as for a growing number of regional,sub national, and national institutions protecting and promoting human rights."
Its derivatives, the ICESCR and the ICCPR, are legally binding and we might find something there that fits. The stuff which MariaD (if I remember rightly - having trouble scrolling down past pages while writing) found a few posts ago might be useful:
http://www.humanrights.is/en/human-righ ... and-gender
"The Committee is of the view that a person’s surname constitutes an important component of one’s identity and that the protection against arbitrary or unlawful interference with one’s privacy includes the protection against arbitrary or unlawful interference with the right to choose and change one’s own name".
This has been cited a lot, e.g. on p. 534 of
The international covenant on civil and political rights: cases, materials and commentary, third edition, Sarah Joseph and Melissa Castan, OUP, 2013.
I of course find it quite monstrous that a
passport should be a privilege and not a right. I find it unjust and quite frankly verging on the totalitarian.
"United Kingdom passports are issued in the UK at the discretion of the Home Secretary and in overseas posts at the discretion of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. They are issued in exercise of the Royal Prerogative, which is an executive power that doesn’t require legislation. There is however, no entitlement to a
passport".
"Because
passport facilities are granted at the discretion of the Secretary of State exercising the Royal Prerogative, there is no contractual relationship between the IPS and a
passport applicant."
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... gative.pdf
Despite the fact that it is archaically draconian, that appears to be their stance, though some weak ways of challenging individual
passport decisions have developed over the years.
Of course, the pdf I just posted cites reasons for refusing passports as being really serious ones. However, the new name discrepancy document issued in February 2015 (which was given in an earlier post, but let's have it again because why not:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/crac ... -detection
And more specifically
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... e-guidance)
makes it quite clear that they won't issue a
passport in one's new name if one can't get that new name on one's foreign
passport. That in conjunction with the rather contemptible 'royal prerogative, no right to a
passport' idea renders our prospects 'drear', as Rabbie Burns would say (and as a product of the Scottish Enlightenment he would find this whole mechanism despicable).
So it seems that either the HMPO's request, as per noajthan's letter, for written confirmation implies that then they will issue the
passport in the desired name (which it may not), or evidence, as per MariaD's experience if I remember correctly, that one has *applied* for a change of name with one's foreign
passport authorities will be accepted as grounds for issuing the
passport in one's desired name, or one is up a river of metabolic effluvia bereft of means of propulsion and must either go for judicial review (which as I say is likely to cost 2000 queenie papers), take it further by means of a heavy-duty legal challenge involving e.g. the UDHR, the presumption of innocence and that verdict re: the ICCPR which I cited above (at the cost of even more wonga which many of us may not have - I know I don't), battle one's non-British country for name change (as I am currently doing, though the quest is almost certainly doomed, hence heroic but ultimately irrelevant), or abandon one's foreign citizenship and provide a magic letter to that effect from one's former homeland - a most horrifying thing to ask someone to do. (Some countries, of course, make it easy to regain that nationality. Just saying).
I do suspect that even if a legal fisticuffs involving the right to choose one's name under international law would be declared as conveying the right to British citizens to change their names - a right which they already have - the
passport people will still say 'yes, you have the right to HAVE that name, in some theoretical disembodied way, but not specifically to have it on the identity page of your
passport, because we're above the law, and furthermore, nanny nanny boo boo'.
However, the right to control one's name under international law might be useful in obtaining a name change in one's non-British country which refuses to change one's name; again this may involve much bureaucracy and painful disbursement of pecuniary resources of which I am sadly bereft. However, I do intend to use this angle, inter alia, in my challenge to my non-British country's refusal to change my name, which is ongoing.
As you can see, this nestless birdie really, really wants a nest.
