We recommend that the Draft Regulations are amended to require that parents show an identity document, issued either by the Department of Home Affairs or their country of origin, to register the births of their children. The requirement to prove current legal stay in South Africa should be removed. In the alternative, we recommend that the department of Home Affairs comply with the Naki Judgement that rewords the Regulation to require parents to show legal stay ‘where possible’. 4. Regulation 12: children born out of wedlock Draft Regulation 12(1), which pertains to children born out of wedlock, is discriminatory in that it does not allow fathers born out of wedlock to register the birth of their child. In July 2018, the Grahamstown High Court in the case of Naki and Others v Director General: Department of Home Affairs and Another (Case No 4996/2016) declared Regulation 12 unconstitutional and changed the wording of the section to ensure that a father was able to register the birth of his child in the absence of the mother.14 In this case Bodlani AJ stated that In order to cure the defects in the sub regulations mentioned in Regulation 12(1), the following remedy shall apply: immediately after the word “by” to sub regulation (1) of Regulation 12 the words “either” and immediately after the word “mother” in that sub regulation the words “or father”. The SCCT recommends that Draft Regulation 12 be amended to allow fathers of children born out of wedlock to register the birth of their child. 5. Regulation 9: Notice of birth of abandoned or orphaned children Draft Regulation 9(2) differentiates the treatment between children born to non-South Africans and South Africans. In our opinion, there should be no differentiation between children born to South Africans or non-citizens when it comes to the registration of abandoned or orphaned children. According to the Draft Regulations, a child born to non-South Africans, who is abandoned or orphaned, would be obliged to fulfil the requirements of Draft Regulation 8. It is submitted that a child in this position would simply be unable to fulfil the requirements of Draft Regulation 8. Those children who are abandoned or orphaned and born to non-South African parents would be verified 14 For more information on the case, see: Kathleen Mpofu, ‘High Court rules children born in South Africa can be registered, regardless of their parents' legal status’, GroundUp, (28 August 2018). Available at: https://www.groundup.org.za/article/high-court-rules-all-children-born-south-africa-regardless-their-parentslegal-status-can-be-registered/. 7