Apex court defers decision on citizenship appeal by 10-year-old

 

The boy was born in the Philippines to his parents, who married in Malaysia only a few months after his birth.

PUTRAJAYA: A seven-member Federal Court bench has deferred its decision to a date to be fixed later in the appeal by a 10-year-old boy with a Malaysian father and Filipino mother, to get Malaysian citizenship.

Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat who chaired the bench said the court had reserved judgment in the appeal.

The court earlier heard submissions from counsel Cyrus Das and senior federal counsel Shamsul Bolhassan.

The other judges presiding were Court of Appeal president Rohana Yusuf and Federal Court judges Nallini Pathmanathan, Vernon Ong Lam Kiat, Zabariah Mohd Yusof, Hasnah Mohammed Hashim and Mary Lim Thiam Suan.

The father of the child applied to the National Registration Department (JPN) for his child to be made a citizen of Malaysia but his application was rejected without any valid reason in 2012.

The boy was born in the Philippines to his parents, who had married in Malaysia a few months after his birth.

The father then filed an originating summons on behalf of his son, seeking a declaration that he is a Malaysian citizen and for an order to compel the director-general of JPN to issue him a birth certificate and a Malaysian identity card.

On Aug 23, 2017, the High Court dismissed the child’s originating summons ruling that he was not qualified to acquire citizenship by operation of law as at the time of his birth, the mother was not a citizen of the Federation of Malaysia.

He also lost his appeal which was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on Feb 14, 2019. He obtained leave to appeal to the Federal Court on Oct 15, 2019 on four legal questions for determination by the court.

In today’s appeal proceedings conducted via Zoom, the court heard submissions from Das who contended that it was the citizenship status of the father at the time of the birth of his child that was material, and not the legitimacy of the child at the time of his birth.

He said section 1 (b) of the Second Schedule in the Federal Constitution should not be read as providing for a discriminatory condition as between legitimate and illegitimate children for qualification for citizenship.

Das, who appeared with counsel Sharmini Thiruchelvam and Francis Pereira, said that if illegitimate children were to be excluded for citizenship, the constitutional framers would have expressly provided for that disqualification.

On Article 24 of the Federal Constitution, which was the principal ground on which the Court of Appeal denied citizenship to the child, Das said that Article has no relevance to the facts of the case.

He said the boy, having been born outside Malaysia, had to travel back to Malaysia and as such had to naturally obtain travel documents at his birth place in order to enter Malaysia legally with his father.

“The child will relinquish and surrender his Philippine passport once Malaysian citizenship is granted and will welcome any condition that is attached by the court to the granting of the Malaysian citizenship,” he said.

Shamsul, meanwhile, argued that the child was not entitled to attain citizenship because the Federal Constitution does not permit for an illegitimate child born to a non-citizen mother to gain Malaysian citizenship by operation of law.

He said the child was born out of wedlock to a non-citizen mother, adding that subsequent legitimisation of the child does not have the effect of changing the child’s birth status.

“It is clear that even under section 4 of the Legitimacy Act 1961, the subsequent marriage of the parents will only deem the child as legitimate from the date of the marriage,” he said.

Shamsul, who represented the JPN director-general, the secretary-general of the home ministry and the government, said the status of the child at the time of his birth remained illegitimate and his birth status did not qualify him to be a citizen by operation of law. - FMT