I welcome the Ipoh High Court’s landmark decision that recognises the citizenship rights to a child born in this country to a Malaysian father and a foreign mother even if the parents were yet to register their marriage at the time of birth.
In a landmark ruling 2 days ago, the High Court in Ipoh has granted citizenship to a stateless girl based on Article 14(1)(b) of the Constitution as she was born in Malaysia after Malaysia Day, one of her parents is a Malaysian, and she does not have any other citizenship.
The government must interpret the Constitution harmoniously to uphold the principle that every child born in this country has to have a nationality and therefore must not be left stateless, as per the Second Schedule, Part 2, Section 1 of our Constitution.
We must not discriminate against any child just because of the marital status of his or her parents at the time of birth. Putting this group of children into a situation of statelessness or at risk of statelessness due to this reason is not only cruel, but also deprives them of a meaningful future at the moment they were born.
Our parliament office and other district service centres have witnessed so many cases where the first born in the family remains stateless for his or her entire life so far while their sisters and brothers are Malaysia citizens, just because of the marital status of their parents at the time of their birth. As a result, this group of people could not further their studies after secondary school, could not find a job and simply could not lead a normal life of a citizen in their country of birth. Not only is their future in question but also the stress and sense of injustice they have to endure on a daily basis. Malaysia, too, is suffering from socio-economic issues due to loss of potential talents and workforce.
Currently, the only way for this group to apply for citizenship is through Article 15A, but the process of application is simply too opaque. The government not only should reduce the red tape on this type of application, but the authority should also set KPI on the time duration for the application process, such as 60 days or 90 days from the time of submission and be transparent on the reasons for rejecting certain applications.
In this age of information technology, we cannot accept any more such “black box” operation by our Home Ministry, where approval seems to be at the whims and fancies of the minister in charge without specific criteria and no reasons are offered for any rejected application. The Prime Minister should make this one of the KPIs for the Home Minister and present the report card for all to see.