Govt stand on citizenship of stateless children 'irresponsible', contradicts Constitution

PETALING JAYA: A lawyers group has taken deputy Home Minister Azis Jamman to task for putting the blame in the problem of stateless children on the failure of their parents to register their marriage.

Lawyers for Liberty said the approach of the Home Ministry towards the problem of stateless children was irresponsible and contrary to the Federal Constitution.

“It is similar to the discredited approach of the previous BN regime, which in the first place led to large numbers of children becoming stateless throughout Malaysia,” LFL advisor N. Surendran said in a statement on Tuesday (March 26).

He said the position taken by the Home Ministry was not only against the law and Constitution, but also against the Pakatan Harapan manifesto, which recognised the problem of statelessness in Malaysia.

Surendran said the marital status of the parents was irrelevant under the Federal Constitution because, by virtue of the 2nd Schedule Part 2 section 1(a) of the Constitution, a child was automatically a Malaysian as long as one of the parents of the child was Malaysian.

He added that this was the case even when the mother was a non-citizen, because the child would have fulfilled the requirement under section 1(a) that at least one parent was a citizen.

“In short, irrespective of the mother being a non-citizen and the marriage being unregistered, the child is automatically entitled to Malaysian citizenship as long as the father is a citizen.

“Hence, the position taken by the government in the Dewan Rakyat yesterday is a gross misstatement or misunderstanding of the law. Why is the Home Ministry bent on wrongly interpreting the Constitution to the prejudice and disadvantage of guiltless children, and rendering them stateless?

“To adopt the course suggested by the Home Ministry would be to punish the innocent child simply for being illegitimate, which is unjust and barbarous,” said Surendran.

Azis had told Parliament on Monday (March 25) that parents were fully responsible for ensuring their children haf proper documentation for citizenship applications to avoid becoming stateless.

He said the government would not automatically grant citizenship when a child was born in Malaysia.

“The burden of proof for the (citizenship of the) child is on the shoulders of the parents, not the government. The problem now is that many marriages are not registered. And when it is not registered, the child will face the problem,” he said.

Azis also said that where a child was born before the marriage was registered, the government would accept the application (for citizenship) not under Article 14 but Article 15A (of the Federal Constitution under special circumstances).

Surendran, however, said Article 15A was of no use to stateless children as the granting of citizenship was at the absolute discretion of the Home Minister.

He said wascommon for the application under Article 15A took several years to process and frequently resulted in repeated rejection, while the stateless child remained in limbo.

“The PH government's answer yesterday in Parliament that the children can apply under Article 15A was the standard response given by the old BN regime. It is a transparent delaying tactic to deny citizenship to desperate stateless children,” he said.