Judge tosses Obama birth certificate suit
Pacific Business News (Honolulu)
A lawsuit that tried to force the State of Hawaii to release a copy of President-Elect Barack Obama’s birth certificate has been dismissed.
Honolulu Circuit Court Judge Bert Ayabe on Wednesday ruled that author Andy Martin had no standing under state law to obtain a copy of the birth certificate.
Ayabe said in his decision that Martin had no “direct and tangible interest in the vital statistic records being sought.” Hawaii public records laws are more restrictive than in many states and allow birth and death certificates to be released only to family members and those with a “direct” interest.
The inability of Obama critics to put their hands on his actual birth record from a Honolulu hospital in August 1961 has fueled rumors that he wasn’t actually born in the United States but instead was born in Kenya, his father’s home country.
Martin, a Chicago-based author and Obama critic, moved to Hawaii in November in an attempt to dig out more information about the candidate and filed the lawsuit demanding access to the birth certificate.
In response to the clamor, the director of Hawaii’s Department of Health, Chiyome Fukino, confirmed that Obama’s original birth certificate was on file and that she had personally seen it.
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