NRD violating children’s rights, says lawyer

It interprets the constitution as it likes, alleges Latheefa Koya.

PETALING JAYA: Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) today accused the National Registration Department (NRD) of denying citizenship rights to children by interpreting the Federal Constitution to suit its liking.

The evidence, according to LFL adviser Latheefa Koya, is in its ruling that the citizenship of a child born out of wedlock follows that of its mother’s.

“The NRD does its own interpretation of what it perceives as right under the constitution,” Latheefa said. “By doing this, NRD is denying the rights of the child.”

Latheefa cited Article 14 of the constitution, which states that a person born in Malaysia is a citizen of the country by operation of law if either of its parents is a citizen or permanent resident.

According to the NRD website, however, a child’s citizenship status follows its mother’s if it is born before its parents’ marriage is registered.

But Latheefa said there was nothing in the constitution requiring parents to be married.

She also said NRD could remove doubts about the identity of a child’s father by conducting DNA tests. “If they do this, then it would not be an issue to determine whether the child’s father is Malaysian or not.

“The NRD’s job is to register a person. If something is wrong, they are supposed to investigate.”

Latheefa lashed out at the NRD’s “long history” of displaying a “discriminatory attitude”.

“They have a confused the moral outlook of things. This discriminatory attitude has to be fixed.”

Referring to the recent inquiry in Sabah by a royal commission, she said it revealed that the NRD had given citizenship to people whose reason for being in Malaysia was suspect.

“How come in this instance it could relax its rules but in other cases be overly strict until some had to dig their grandfather’s graves to prove where they came from?” she said.

She alleged that civil servants had lost their objectivity because of brainwashing by the government through National Civics Bureau courses and other means.

Consitutional law expert Syahredzan Johan commented that the citizenship issue was a “classic example” of administrative obstacles getting in the way of constitutional rights.

“The marital status of the parents does not affect citizenship,” he said. “It only affects the legitimacy of the child.

“The only possibility of citizenship being affected by the marital status of the parents is perhaps in trying to prove the parentage for the purpose of establishing that the parent is a Malaysian or a permanent resident.”

Former Suhakam commissioner N Siva Subramaniam said a check with the NRD confirmed that if the parents were not married, a child’s citizenship would follow the mother’s.

“This is the law currently used,” he said. “However, things have changed where we see many Malaysian men marrying foreign women.”

He said some regulations should be reviewed in the light of the demands of human rights.

“We cannot deny the fact that both men and women marry foreigners,” he said. “Thus, the rules and regulations should be revised.

“It doesn’t matter whether it is the mother or father who is a citizen. What matters is the right of the child. Basing citizenship on the mother is a violation of the man’s right.”