Court orders Registration Department to issue teenager with MyKad

Navin's quest to get a MyKad and citizenship after being denied by the National Registration Department has now come to a successful conclusion. - The Malaysian Insider pic, November 25, 2014.The High Court today ordered the National Registration Department to issue a teenager citizenship and MyKad although the marriage of his parents was not registered.

Judge Datuk Hue Siew Kheng said the Federal Constitution did not look into the status of parents when a child was born in the country.

"The government should not punish the child for the mistakes of the parents," she said in allowing a suit by businessman R. Moorthy who had asked Putrajaya torecognise his son Navin, as a Malaysian citizen.

She said by issuing Navin a passport, the government implicitly recognised him as a Malaysian because the travel document was only given to citizens.

Hue, who ordered the government to pay RM8,000 in costs to Moorthy, also directed the department to issue a MyKad to Navin, now 16, within 30 days.

She also commended Moorthy for being a responsible single parent as he had raised the boy and given him a sound education. Navin had scored 5As in the Standard Six UPSR examination.

Moorthy, who was represented by Anou Xavier, had made two attempts to obtain citizenship for Navin since 2010 but failed on both occasions. He filed the suit last year.

The government had also attempted to strike out the suit on the grounds that Navin was an illegitimate child as his parents' marriage was not registered, but Hue had decided that the suit had to go to trial as there were triable issues to be determined.

In an originating summons filed in December last year, Moorthy named the director-general of the department, secretary-general of the Home Ministry and the government as defendants.

When he went to the department to apply for the MyKad, Moorthy was told his son was not a citizen despite holding a Malaysian birth certificate and a Malaysian passport.

In his affidavit, Moorthy said his son had been taunted by his schoolmates for not being a Malaysian.

"They called him a foreigner," Moorthy, a Malaysian, said in his affidavit where he also stated that he had taken a DNA test to prove that he fathered the boy.

Navin's mother is a Filipina who so far cannot be traced despite many attempts made in Malaysia and abroad.

The ministry, in a letter dated July last year, stated that Navin's application for citizenship had been rejected because Moorthy's marriage was not registered under local laws.

- TMI