PENGERANG lawmaker Azalina Othman Said has filed a motion to table a private member’s bill for a constitutional amendment to grant citizenship to overseas-born children of Malaysian mothers.

The motion was submitted to Dewan Rakyat secretary Nizam Mydin Bacha Mydin on September 15.

Azalina has requested that the bill be tabled in the next Dewan Rakyat sitting on October 3.

Azalina, who is the chairman of the parliamentary special select committee on women, children and social development, is seeking to amend Part II of the Second Schedule of the Federal Constitution to insert the words “or mother” after the word “father” in Clauses (1)(b) and (1)(c).

The clauses state that every person born outside the Federation on or after Malaysia Day, whose father is at the time of the birth a Malaysian citizen, is considered a Malaysian citizen by operation of the law.

Last September, Kuala Lumpur High Court disagreed with this practice, ruling that constitutional provisions on citizenship rights must be read together with provisions against gender discrimination.

On this basis, High Court judge Akhtar Tahir decided that the word “father” must be read to include mothers and that their children are entitled to citizenship by operation of law.

The judgment was subsequently reversed 2-1 by a Court of Appeal panel of judges.

In Putrajaya, Justice Kamaludin Md Said, in his judgement, said the word “father” in section 1(b) of Part II of the second schedule of the Federal Constitution refers to father only and is not intended to include the mother.

This means it precluded Malaysian mothers married to a non-Malaysian citizen from passing on their citizenship status to their children born outside Malaysia.

However, Justice S. Nantha Balan, who gave the dissenting judgement, said there is a plain and apparent conflict between articles 8(2) and 14(1)(b), and its related provisions of the Federal Constitution, which implies that the bloodline of the mother is inferior to the bloodline of the father.

He also added: “It is illogical, perverse and degrading to the dignity of Malaysian women”.

Family Frontiers and the six Malaysian mothers in the suit have filed for leave to appeal to the Federal Court. – September 19, 2022.