KOTA KINABALU: Parti Warisan has urged the National Registration Department (NRD) to fix errors in the religious statuses of Sabah and Sarawak by setting up a special unit.
The party’s strategic communication director Christopher Masudal said that the Home Ministry, through the NRD, must resolve the problems of wrongly identified religions of non-Muslim citizens who find it difficult to correct their status to their actual practising religion.
Masudal said such a special unit for Sabah and Sarawak should help those with similar problems who were forced to resort to the courts to correct such administrative errors in their MyKad.
He added the unit could also act as a fast track to expedite delayed MyKad applications for Sabahans, especially those in rural areas.
Warisan’s suggestions for the formation of the unit come following Wednesday’s (Jan 7) Kota Kinabalu High Court decision to grant an application of Abdul Manap Bakusai @ Abu Bakar, a non-Muslim, and his three children to amend their MyKad to reflect their Christian faith
In her judgment, Justice Datuk Celestina Stuel Galid expressed concern that such a case was not isolated, and previous cases - Satiah Simbunar v. Sabah NRD and Zulkifli Adirin v. Sabah NRD- where the religious status in their MyKad had been wrongly inserted as “Islam” into an identity card based on assumptions made by registration officers.
Judge Celestina described it as “fundamentally wrong” for the NRD to unilaterally determine an individual’s religion, holding that the department had gone beyond its administrative role.
Masudal said that it was common among the native Kadazandusun, Murut and Rungus communities in rural Sabah to have the use of ‘bin’ and ‘binti’ in their names, adding that the practice remains widespread among the Christians and other non-Muslims in the community.
He said that NRD should not determine religious status based merely on a person’s name, as every applicant has already declared their religion in the application form, as it contravenes Article 11 of the Federal Constitution that guarantees freedom of religion.
“These proposals may be seen as minor by the federal government, but there are crucial steps to demonstrate its commitment to ensuring that Sabahans, particularly the native communities in the interior, truly experience change under the Unity Government,” Masudal said.
