[ad_1]
PUTRAJAYA: A seven-member federal court postponed its decision to a date to be set later in the appeal of a 10-year-old boy of a Malaysian father and a Filipino mother to obtain Malaysian citizenship.
Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat, who presided over the court, said the court had reserved the trial on appeal.
The court previously heard presentations from attorney Cyrus Das and senior federal attorney Shamsul Bolhassan.
The other presiding judges were the President of the Court of Appeals, Rohana Yusuf, and the Federal Court judges, Nallini Pathmanathan, Vernon Ong Lam Kiat, Zabariah Mohd Yusof, Hasnah Mohammed Hashim, and Mary Lim Thiam Suan.
The boy’s father applied to the Department of National Registration (JPN) for his son to become 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 a citation of origin on behalf of his son, requesting a declaration that he is a Malaysian citizen and an order to compel the JPN CEO to issue him a Malay birth certificate and identity card.
On 23 August 2017, the High Court dismissed the child’s initial subpoena and ruled that he was not qualified to acquire citizenship under the 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 Appeals on February 14, 2019. He obtained permission to appeal to the Federal Court on October 15, 2019 on four legal issues for the court’s determination.
In today’s appeal proceedings conducted through Zoom, the court heard presentations from Das, who held that it was the father’s citizenship status at the time of his son’s birth that was material, and not legitimacy. of the child at the time of birth.
He said that section 1 (b) of the Second Annex of the Federal Constitution should not be construed as establishing a discriminatory condition between legitimate and illegitimate children to qualify for citizenship.
Das, who appeared with lawyers Sharmini Thiruchelvam and Francis Pereira, said that if illegitimate children were excluded from citizenship, the constitutional writers would have expressly provided for such a disqualification.
Regarding article 24 of the Federal Constitution, which was the main reason why the Court of Appeals denied the boy’s citizenship, Das said the article has no relevance to the facts of the case.
He said the boy, who was born outside Malaysia, had to travel back to Malaysia and as such naturally had to obtain travel documents at his place of birth in order to legally enter Malaysia with his father.
“The child will renounce and hand over his Philippine passport once he is granted Malay citizenship and he will appreciate any conditions that the court places on the granting of Malay citizenship,” he said.
Shamsul, meanwhile, argued that the child had no right to obtain citizenship because the Federal Constitution does not allow an illegitimate child born to a non-citizen mother to obtain Malaysian citizenship by application of the law.
He said the child was born out of wedlock to a non-citizen mother, adding that the subsequent legitimation 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 of 1961, the subsequent marriage of the parents will only consider the child as legitimate from the date of marriage,” he said.
Shamsul, who represented the JPN Director General, the Secretary General of the Interior Ministry and the government, said that the child’s status at the time of his birth remained illegitimate and that his birth status did not qualify him to be a citizen by operation. . Of law.
