KUALA LUMPUR: The Court of Appeal has set Aug 5 to deliver its verdict on the appeal by the government to overturn a landmark ruling that allows automatic citizenship to children born overseas to Malaysian mothers married to foreigners.
The decision was announced by a three-member Bench chaired by Justice Kamaludin Md Said, who sat with Justices Azizah Nawawi and S. Nantha Balan.
Kamaludin had also requested for the verdict to be delivered in an open court for the benefit of all parties, including the media and those holding a watching brief.
The decision to defer the verdict to Aug 5 came following additional submission by senior federal counsel Liew Horng Bin for the government and others, citing the Federal Court judgment in the Dhinesh case in April to reinforce the point that a previous amendment to Article 8(2) of the Constitution should not include Article 14 on citizenship.
Liew said the affirmation of the Dhinesh judgment meant that the awarding of citizenship is a basic right and therefore, amendments to Section 8(2) cannot include or mean an amendment to Article 14, which denotes the citizenship of the children, shall be applied to the Malaysian fathers and not mothers.
“It is impermissible to interchange the word father to include mothers,” added Liew.
Lawyer Datuk Dr Gurdial Singh Nijar, who was representing Association of Family Support & Welfare Selangor & Kuala Lumpur (Family Frontiers) against the government, said the Dhinesh judgment should be read as a whole, rather than certain parts of the passages.
“If we look at the whole judgment, it is clear that amendments are allowed if it is consistent with the basic structure and does not create something completely new,” he added.
Speaking at a press conference in Bukit Damansara after the verdict, Gurdial said the government had raised a “startling point” when it argued that anti-gender discriminatory amendments to Article 8(2) in 2001 were “impermissible”.
“So, we hope to demolish this contention,” he added.
On March 23, the Court of Appeal set June 22 to give its verdict on the appeal by the government seeking to overturn a Sept 9 landmark ruling that children born overseas to Malaysian mothers who are married to foreigners are entitled to automatic Malaysian citizenship.
Family Frontiers president Suriani Kempe said all the six mothers have received citizenship documents for their children, but stressed that the same rights should be accorded to other Malaysian mothers facing the same predicament.
“As we wait for the Aug 5 judgment, mothers who have not submitted applications on their case, should continue to submit their documents to the National Registration Department (NRD) to ensure their children receive citizenship documents.
“We also ask the NRD to continue abiding by the High Court order and issue citizenship documents to Malaysian mothers,” said Suriani.
