And once again it is you who needs to be corrected as to Hawaii law. Anyone who is acting on behalf of the party is allowed to view the record.
No, Robert -- no fringe reset for you.
As was previously told to you several times, while the subject of the vital record may designate a party to act on his behalf (and this is what Obama did in securing copies of his long-form certificate), the subject of the record does not have the statutory authority to compel the registrar to allow access to the original, either for himself or for his designee. This is the part you keep missing. The law is about
who, not
how.
Yes, we're all well aware of the statute that spells out who may inspect the information contained in vital records. You, however, left out the important part. In your haste to quote paragraph (b), you neglected to quote paragraph (a) where the "rules of the department of health" come into play. There is
no provision whatsoever in the Hawaii DOH rules, which are lengthy and detailed and discuss in great detail the preparation of certified copies, for any party of any kind to access the original record. There is no provision either in law or in regulation that allows anyone to specify the
manner of inspecting vital information.
The law is written to protect the privacy of the subjects. That is, it is written to guard who may learn the vital information as certified by the state. That is its focus. That is why it goes into great detail to set policy for what relationships must exist between the requestor and the subject in order for the request for vital information to be legally valid, and into
absolutely no detail whatsoever to set any policy of any kind for how that inspection may occur. By statute, that is the discretion of the department of health, which, since 1962, has provided only certified copies. If the law didn't mention inspection of the original record, however, as one of the ways in which one could break this law, then it would leave a very large hole in it.
That doesn't mean access to the original must be necessarily allowed. If, under the present system, some person managed to gain access to the original certificate by subterfuge, persuasion, he would otherwise go unpunished for obtaining vital information. Yes, an
additional crime may be committed in, for example, breaking and entering the vault where the record is kept, or bribing the janitor, but without the provision (unlawful though it may be to see the original), the
information is left unprotected.
As a corollary, I may have in my possession certified copies of birth certificates for my employees if they choose to document their citizenship in that fashion for eligibility to work. Although I do not have a direct and tangible interest in their vital information, the subject of the record has chosen to disclose that information to me to satisfy my direct and tangible interest in his citizenship. If I, however, disclose that information to other parties, such as by leaving his employee file open on a conference table, I am liable for violating this law. This is one of the reasons employee records must be kept under lock and key.
For the fourth time, you have
provided absolutely no statutory or regulatory authority compelling the Hawaii DOH to allow access to its
original records. Your inability to see the fine nuances of the law and regulation do not permit you simply to repeat debunked claims.
