Lawyers for Liberty adviser N Surendran has taken Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail to task for saying that citizenship law amendments are necessary to prevent Rohingya babies from becoming citizens.
In a statement today he called them baseless and said that Saifuddin’s claim ran contrary to how the law operates.
“I refer to Saifuddin’s statement yesterday in which he justified the controversial citizenship amendments on abandoned babies and stateless persons by claiming that Rohingyas were giving birth in hospitals and ‘they ran away’.
“He also claimed that if an infant does not have an umbilical cord, it is not an abandoned baby.
“Saifuddin’s excuses are unlawful, irrational, inhumane and impractical. The minister appears to treat abandoned babies like some kind of national security threat or a dangerous enemy,” the former Padang Serai MP said.
Surendran (above) claimed that the ministry’s arguments in support of the much-criticised amendments have become increasingly bizarre and far-fetched.
“As the Constitution stands now, Section 1(a) and 1(e) of Part 1 of the 2nd Schedule read with Section 19B ensure that an abandoned newborn child gets Malaysian citizenship.
“This is both sound law and sound practical sense. Where else can an abandoned child found anywhere in Malaysia go? The infant must live here and be a citizen of this country. Every civilised country in the world has similar provisions in their law.
“Saifuddin and his ministry now propose to repeal Section 1(e) and 19B, deprive abandoned babies of any right to citizenship and throw them at the mercy of the Home Ministry, which is notorious for rejecting citizenship applications or delaying it for years,” he said.
Creating bigger problem
Surendran added that thousands of qualified stateless adults would also be denied.
“Saifuddin’s complaint that a child abandoned by Rohingya will, because of the current provisions, get Malaysian citizenship is baseless and displays ignorance of how the constitutional provisions operate.
“Simply put, if the identity of the parents is known to be Rohingya, the child will anyway not qualify for Malaysian citizenship under the current provisions. Courts have been strict about this.
“If on the other hand, the identity of the parents is not known, the abandoned child will be presumed to be Malaysian. This is both good law and good sense,” he said.
Surendran pointed out the humane thing to do with an abandoned child whose origins are not traceable is to give it Malaysian citizenship.
“To do otherwise will be to hurl the child into existence in the margins of society, which is cruel and of no benefit to the country’s economy or interest,” he added.
The lawyer claimed that Saifuddin’s proposed amendments will do exactly this, throwing thousands of stateless children into an existence in the gutters, bereft of the educational and employment benefits that citizenship brings, and creating a new generation of stateless persons in Malaysia.
No umbilical cord claim ‘bizarre’
Surendran also deemed Saifuddin’s claim that if a child does not have an umbilical cord it is not considered an abandoned child to be “untenable and bizarre”.
“There is no provision of the Constitution or any other law that says this. This appears to be a criteria imposed at the whims of the Home Ministry.
“It is a misstatement of the law, which the minister has no right to make. This kind of thinking also reflects the mindset of the Home Ministry, which appears to be to exclude foundlings and children from the grant of citizenship.
“It confirms that if the automatic provisions in Section 1(e) and Section 19B are repealed, and this power is transferred to the discretion of the Home Ministry, it will result in rejection or delay of thousands upon thousands of applications and creation of a new class of stateless persons,” he said.
Surendran reminded Saifuddin that it is not too late to step back from the brink and withdraw these amendments while proceeding only with the amendments related to the problem of children born to overseas Malaysian mothers.
“To do otherwise, would impose untold suffering upon innocents,” he warned. - Mkini
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