Mothers turn to rulers after home minister's 'baffling' appeal justification

 

The group of mothers who successfully challenged a discriminatory citizenship rule against women said Home Minister Hamzah Zainudin’s justification to appeal the decision was “baffling”.

Hamzah had said the decision to appeal was to avoid contempt of court and also raise the fact that there was a similar case in which the court decided differently.

However, the mothers under the Family Frontiers banner said the Home Ministry never raised the case of Mahisha Suhaila Abdul Majeed during court submissions.

Furthermore, the mothers said the judge in Mahisha’s case did not address the two conflicting constitutional provisions while the judge in their case did.

“It is to be noted that the case of Mahisha Suhaila Abdul Majeed v National Registration Department (NRD) director and two others - that the home minister claims to be in contradiction with the Kuala Lumpur High Court decision on the case by Family Frontiers - did not deal with reconciling the two said provisions.

“This must also be the reason why the Attorney-General’s Chambers did not refer to this case during their submissions before the High Court judge Akhtar Tahir.

“After all, if it was indeed in their favour, they would most certainly have raised this case,” they said.

Short-lived victory

The Kuala Lumpur High Court had on Sept 9 ruled that the constitutional provision which only granted automatic citizenship to overseas-born children only if their father is Malaysian under Article 14(1)(b), read together with the Second Schedule, must also be extended to Malaysian mothers.

Judge Akhtar said this was in order to reconcile with Article 8(2) which forbids discrimination unless expressly authorised by the Federal Constitution, including along gender lines.

Hamzah said the government was appealing the decision to “buy time” amid plans to amend the Federal Constitution to address the discriminatory treatment of Malaysian mothers with foreign spouses.

He added that the conference of rulers must be consulted as matters of citizenship fall under their jurisdiction.

The mothers pointed out that judge Mariana Yahya, who decided in Mahisha’s case, was also involved in the Family Frontier case when the government tried to strike out the suit when it went before the Court of Appeal.

They said Mariana was part of the Court of Appeal panel which decided that there were merits for a full hearing of the Family Frontier case, which eventually resulted in a decision in their favour.

Lack of concrete plan concerning

They also questioned if Hamzah has sought the commitment of two-thirds of MPs for the proposed constitutional amendment and expressed concern at the lack of a timeline.

“He has not provided any certainty or time frame for the amendment while, in the meantime, no remedy is offered to the women whom his ministry rejected without reason.

“We now directly seek the consent of the Conference of Rulers to set right the injustice caused by the discrimination against Malaysian mothers, who have been in anguish for years, and who for a few short days celebrated the justice for their children with the High Court judgement of Sept 9,” they said.

The mothers also urged MPs to support the constitutional amendment to end the discrimination against Malaysian mothers.

They added that the government’s appeal meant it was taking a stance that women were second-class citizens.

“With Malaysia seeking a seat on the (United Nations) Human Rights Council, this is an entirely missed opportunity for the Malaysian government to set right and provide relief to suffering Malaysian women and their children.

“Affected Malaysian mothers are angry and disappointed that their government has done little to provide them equal protection of the law,” they said. - Mkini