Govt asks court to suspend issuance of birth cert to boy

 

The Kuala Lumpur High Court will hear JPN’s stay application on June 21.

KUALA LUMPUR: The government has filed an application to stay a High Court order requiring the director-general of the national registration department (JPN) to issue a birth certificate to a five-year-old boy reflecting his status as a citizen.

Lawyer Marcus Lee said the application will be heard by Justice Wan Ahmad Farid Wan Salleh on June 21.

“We will be filing an affidavit to oppose the application,” Lee told FMT.

He said he was served a copy of the application last week together with an affidavit affirmed by JPN director-general Zamri Misman.

Zamri claimed there were special circumstances to justify the suspension of the order delivered by Wan Ahmad on May 18 pending an appeal to the Court of Appeal, which was filed on May 26.

“The appeal will become nugatory and academic should it be allowed by the Court of Appeal,” said Zamri, adding that the appeal involved constitutional issues.

He said the grant of a stay would not prejudice either the boy or his parents.

“However, should the stay be disallowed, the court order must be complied with and the documents must be issued. Matters may become complicated if those documents need to be revoked later,” he said.

On May 18, Wan Ahmad ordered JPN to issue a birth certificate in favour of the boy within 30 days to reflect his status as a Malaysian.

In his ruling, he took cognisance of a DNA report, which was not disputed by JPN, confirming that the boy was the biological son of the applicant, a Malaysian citizen.

The judge said the boy had fulfilled all requirements of Article 14 of the Federal Constitution read with paragraph 1(a) of Part II to its First Schedule, making him a citizen “by operation of law”.

Before filing the suit, the father had, in November 2021, applied to JPN for his son’s birth certificate to reflect his Malaysian citizenship, but received no reply.

Despite a letter of demand sent in March last year, JPN rejected his application.

The plaintiff then filed for judicial review in June last year, seeking a declaration that the boy is a citizen by operation of law.

In his affidavit in support of the application, the father, a 27-year-old hawker, said his son was born in July 2018 at a private hospital in Kuala Lumpur, a month before his marriage to the boy’s Vietnamese mother was registered.

However, the birth certificate issued by JPN classified the boy as a non-citizen.

Rights group Lawyers for Liberty had earlier urged the government to withdraw its appeal to demonstrate that it was serious about addressing statelessness. - FMT