Registrar General wins appeal over Sergey Chesnokov’s Irish birth registration

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

The Court of Appeal unanimously upheld the Registrar General’s appeal against a High Court ruling directing that Sergey Chesnokov’s birth be registered in Ireland. Chesnokov’s lawyers had opposed the appeal. The proceedings were reported on 3 February 2017.

The High Court had found in 2015 that Chesnokov had established he was born on Dublin’s Henrietta Street in September 1940 and was entitled to have his birth registered.

Justice Mary Irvine found the evidence inadequate to establish, as a matter of probability, that he was born on the date and at the location alleged. She also found that his appeal against the Registrar General’s original refusal to register his birth had been brought out of time.

Justice Gerard Hogan said the Registrar General was entitled to conclude that the documentary evidence did not establish a Dublin birth in 1940 on the balance of probabilities. His disagreement with the High Court’s conclusions from that documentary record was his sole reason for allowing the appeal. Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan agreed with both judgments.

Chesnokov said he was born at 5 Henrietta Street in late September 1940. He claimed his official documents recorded Dublin as his birthplace, and family and friends had provided supporting declarations. The report said his birth was registered with Soviet authorities in October 1940, but his parents feared Irish registration might be seen as anti-Soviet. It was unknown how his mother reached Ireland or returned to the Soviet Union.

He sought citizenship to visit his son and grandchild in Ireland and undertook not to apply for Irish State social welfare payments.

The High Court registration order was to be vacated. The matter was adjourned for a week to allow both parties to consider the decision.