A PARLIAMENTARY oversight committee to appoint key officials such as the heads of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and the Election Commission (EC) will be created by Barisan Nasional (BN) if it assumes federal power, its chairman Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said.

In announcing the coalition’s manifesto, Zahid also pledged to enact a law on political finance should BN win in the upcoming general election.

“The law on political finance will help ensure accountability and transparency in the country’s political landscape.

“We will establish a parliamentary special select committee to recommend and vet key appointments to positions such as the chief commissioner of MACC and the chairman of EC,” Zahid said when announcing the pledges in the BN manifesto.

The BN chairman also touched on the issue of children born overseas to Malaysian mothers with foreign spouses, where he said BN is ready to amend the Federal Constitution to confer citizenship to the children.

Currently, Malaysia’s citizenship laws under the Federal Constitution only specify having a Malaysian “father” as the requirement for an overseas-born child to automatically qualify as a Malaysian citizen.

Based on this, the Malaysian government has continued to apply the policy of only allowing Malaysian fathers’ overseas-born children to automatically become Malaysians.

On August 5, the Court of Appeal, in a 2-1 majority decision, had allowed the government’s appeal to overturn the High Court’s landmark ruling allowing children born overseas to Malaysian mothers with foreign spouses to get Malaysian citizenship.

On September 9 last year, the High Court ruled that Malaysian mothers’ overseas-born children are entitled to be Malaysian citizens under the law, and ordered authorities to issue citizenship documents to these overseas-born children.

The charge for citizenship recognition was led by the group Family Frontiers, which is currently planning to challenge the decision of the Court of Appeal at the Federal Court. – November 7, 2022.