This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on March 4, 2024 - March 10, 2024

FOR the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam), the imminent proposal to amend the Federal Constitution to give citizenship rights to children born abroad to Malaysian mothers married to foreigners corrects a longstanding wrong.

It is certainly a progressive move that strengthens the principle of gender equality in the fundamental law of the country.

However, Suhakam has serious concerns about five other proposed changes that are part of the constitutional reform that could have negative impacts on the affected persons, says its commissioner Professor Datuk Noor Aziah Mohamed Awal.

“The granting of citizenship on the basis of an application, as the proposed amendment is said to require, instead of as a constitutional right, is a backward step,” Noor Aziah says in an online interview.

She says Suhakam was unable to state the implications of the changes more precisely because the exact wordings of the proposed amendments had not been shared with stakeholders during consultations with the government.

Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution said last month that the proposed amendments would be tabled to the cabinet on March 8 and if accepted, would be tabled in parliament according to plan.

Besides children born abroad to Malaysian mothers and their foreign spouses, there are seven other categories of people in Malaysia who face statelessness, Noor Aziah explains. They are:

•     Long-term residents who have been in the country since pre-Independence, and their descendants;

•     Abandoned children and foundlings;

•     Indigenous persons without identity documents and whose marriages are not registered;

•     Children born out of wedlock to Malaysian fathers. If the mother is a foreigner, the child will be a foreigner, but if she has left Malaysia, the child’s status is in limbo;

•     Adopted children;

•     Stateless refugees; and

•     Other undocumented persons

The Office of the Children’s Commissioner (OCC), an autonomous unit established under Suhakam in 2019, has identified statelessness as “a critical issue of utmost importance”, the Suhakam website states.

After coming into operation in September 2019, the OCC received 179 complaints about statelessness in that year. Firstly, the OCC maintains, the classification of persons as stateless is a violation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Furthermore, the OCC holds that Malaysia’s reservation against Article 7 of the CRC, the right to nationality, should be lifted by Malaysia.

“Statelessness is definitely a human rights issue because stateless persons face many problems in their daily lives,” says Noor Aziah.

“They cannot go to government schools and have to either pay high fees for private schooling or may be deprived of their right to education. Similarly, they have to pay full charges for healthcare just like foreigners,” she says. Regular jobs are scarce and stateless people are easily exploited or abused. Further, travelling abroad is not possible as they cannot obtain a passport.

“The cabinet briefing on the proposed citizenship amendments falls on International Women’s Day. The government should just table the change that gives the children of Malaysian mothers an equal right to citizenship and hold back for further consultation and review the other proposed amendments until a solution that is more well thought through becomes clear,” says Noor Aziah.

“That would be a wonderful gift for Malaysian mothers and their children,” she says.

However, Saifuddin appears to be preparing to move forward with the proposed changes. When announcing the move last month to table the proposals to the cabinet, he was reported to have told the media that the relevant stakeholders, including rights groups, had been consulted.

“We’ve taken into consideration all inputs [from such groups]. In this process, we have also engaged with experts in the field of constitutional law,” he was quoted as saying by the Free Malaysia Today news site.

Last month, concerned activists appealed to the cabinet in an open letter to halt the proposed amendments and for the government to make the contents of the draft bill available for public discussion.

“We implore you to consider the grave implications of the proposed citizenship amendments and prioritise the protection of citizenship rights for all individuals in Malaysia,” says the Malaysian Citizenship Rights Alliance, a coalition of concerned citizens, activists and organisations dedicated to upholding the rights and dignity of all stateless persons and those impacted by discriminatory citizenship laws. The letter was endorsed by almost 100 organisations and individuals.

Commenting on the negative impacts of the problematic clauses in the draft amendments, Noor Aziah says: “Children who will be affected by these proposed changes are already born under difficult circumstances. Why make it so much harder for them to have a decent life?”

The cabinet’s answer this Friday will reflect the collective wisdom of the government on this sensitive issue. 

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