LAWYERS for Liberty (LFL) has urged the government to withdraw its proposal to amend Malaysia’s citizenship laws.

LFL director Zaid Malek said the government needs to acknowledge the rights to citizenship to end statelessness.

“Withdraw the proposed amendments unequivocally and without delay. The stateless have suffered enough at the hands of the government and should be accorded the right that the Federal Constitution has guaranteed them all this while,” he said in a statement. 

Zaid was responding to Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution’s statement yesterday in parliament in which he had defended the proposed amendments.

The government proposes to amend the Second Schedule, Part II section 1(e) of the Federal Constitution that grants citizenship to every stateless person born in Malaysia citizenship well as Second Schedule, Part III, section 19(b) which grants citizenship to children abandoned by their Malaysian parents.

The amendments will vest the power of granting citizenship solely in the Home Ministry.

Zaid said Saifuddin was ignoring the plight of the stateless and framing the right of citizenship as a security issue because the country was purportedly facing “problems involving migrants and others”.

“This in of itself, at best, shows a total lack of understanding by the home minister and at worst a deliberate misrepresentation of the issue of statelessness in the country.

He said stateless persons are not “migrants and others” but Malaysian citizens unlawfully made stateless by the actions and omissions of the government.

“Most of the stateless cases referred to the NRD (National Registration Department) are not resolved due to the very failure or refusal of the department to facilitate the process (of recognising them as citizens).

“Even Form E, the form for the confirmation of citizenship as per section 14(1)(b) of the Federal Constitution, can scarcely be obtained without legal intervention.

“The NRD has also repeatedly refused to comply with the law in cases of abandoned children, even when the Federal Court in the case of CCH & Anor v Pendaffar Besar bagi Kelahiran dan Kematian, Malaysia has clearly stated that abandoned children are entitled to citizenship under the Second Schedule, Part III, section 19(b).”

Zaid said NRD’s deliberate ignorance of the law and obfuscation of the citizenship process are the primary causes of the prolonged suffering of the stateless.

“They have missed out on opportunities to acquire education, access to healthcare and are unable to obtain gainful employment. (They are) condemned to a life in the margins of society due to statelessness.

“It is baffling that this government has chosen to worsen the statelessness problem with the proposed amendments instead of resolving it. 

“The amendments will steal the constitutional guarantee of Malaysian citizenship from the stateless, eternally dooming them to be strangers in the only home they have ever known.” – November 2, 2023.