A father may voluntarily acknowledge that he is a child’s biological father. Voluntary acknowledgment is possible if there is no legal presumption of paternity or if the court has acknowledged that the mother’s husband is not the child’s father.
example If a couple, expecting a child, is not married, there is no presumption of paternity. Therefore, the father will have to voluntarily acknowledge his paternity upon birth of the child and the mother will have to agree.
Procedure
A man can acknowledge paternity at a centre for social work, before a registrar, in a public deed, or in a will.
For the paternity to be legally recognized, the mother’s consent is needed. The child’s consent to the acknowledgement is required if he or she is more than fifteen years old.
When the registrar receives notification of the birth of a child who was not born in wedlock, he informs the competent centre for social work, which invites the child's mother to state who she considers the child's father. The child's mother can make such a statement even without an invitation.
Afterwards, the competent center for social work invites the identified father to acknowledge paternity.