The issuance of new models of birth, marriage and death certificates will become mandatory in all civil registry offices in the country from January 1, 2025. A provision by the national justice inspectorate, linked to the National Council of Justice (CNJ), determines the inclusion of new information in documents and, when preparing them, the use of special paper that helps to avoid false documents.
The new birth certificate model, for example, has two well-defined fields: one for the place of birth and another for your domicile. This corrects a situation that affects at least a third of Brazilian municipalities that do not have a maternity hospital, according to the National Confederation of Municipalities (CMN). As women in labor are taken to give birth in another city, in many cases, the child ends up being registered as born in the city of the hospital and not in the city where they actually reside.
According to the National Council of Justice (CNJ), the changes were approved by the national internal affairs department to modernize and simplify the documents. According to the Internal Affairs Assistant Judge, Liz Rezende de Andrade, Provision no. 182/2024 updates certificates based on legislative and social changes.
In the case of the marriage certificate, the main change was a distinction between the date of celebration and the date of registration, which had not been considered. The certificates now include the possibility of converting a stable union into marriage, reflecting changes in the recognition of different forms of conjugal union.
Death certificates did not indicate the date of death, only the date on which it was registered. Now, the document now contains the date of death and the date of registration in separate fields, helping to clarify any legal consequences of the death. “These documents are fundamental to civil life and the update is a response to the transformations we have observed over the years”, says the judge.
The initiative for the change arose from a request from a civil registrar in Minas Gerais and was widely discussed with the Association of Natural Person Registrars of Brazil (Arpen Brasil), leading the national internal affairs department to determine new rules. “The inclusion of some fields will bring more clarity and make it easier for both notary offices and people who need to use these documents,” he added.
In the case of the new field on the birth certificate, the measure was demanded by municipal associations, since the city’s population is considered to define transfers from the Municipal Participation Fund (FPM), a federal resource passed on to city halls.
For judge Liz Rezende, the measure reinforces the bond, in the sense of belonging, between citizens and their homeland. “When the mother resides in a municipality without a maternity ward and travels to another city for the birth, she can now include both the place of birth and that of her municipality, as provided for by the Public Records Law,” he stated.
The provision establishes the minimum requirements for the security paper used to prepare documents. According to the judge, it is paper with standards that help prevent the use of false documents. “Based on a birth certificate, a person can complete all civil life documents and this requires a standard of reliability,” he said.
The standard determines that companies that manufacture security paper are accredited to Arpen so that each registrar can choose the supplier among those listed by the association. According to the CNJ, there may be disciplinary sanctions in the event of non-compliance with the determinations of the national justice inspectorate.
In a note, Arpen Brasil informed that notary offices are adapting to the new rules and that they have already been instructed regarding the current paper stocks. “The implementation of the new models does not imply the destruction of security papers already acquired by the services. We reinforce that the current stock can be used until the end, without any risk of penalty or prejudice to the validity of the certificates issued”, he informed.
This content was originally published in Find out what the new models of birth, marriage and death certificates will be like on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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