Suhakam’s children’s commissioner Noor Aziah Mohd Awal said she hoped the government would focus on applying the law as interpreted by the High Court.
She said the biggest winners in this were Malaysian women and the biggest benefit to them was the freedom to marry a foreigner and not worry about having to rush home to give birth.
“The ruling also means a lot to children who are deprived of Malaysian citizenship,” she added.
Hartini Zainudin of the activist group Voice of the Children called the ruling “a great win” for gender equality and children’s rights.
She said the number of stateless children would now be reduced and there would be better protection for children born to Malaysian mothers.
“This decision has a bearing on minimising gender disparity in our country and upholding the rights of Malaysian women,” she added.
Recently, High Court judge Akhtar Tahir ruled that the word “father” in the relevant provision of the Federal Constitution that concerns citizenship rights must be taken to mean as referring to a mother as well.
He also made several declaratory reliefs sought by an NGO and six mothers who asserted that certain provisions on citizenship in the constitution were discriminatory, saying they, like fathers, were entitled to citizenship by operation of law in all processes.
In December 2019, the government revealed that the national registration department had received 111,142 citizenship applications between 2013 and 2018. It rejected 26,222 applications. A total of 54,222 were still being processed, including 27,835 cases involving children.
Lawyer Andrew Khoo said the law minister, instead of appealing the court’s ruling, should immediately introduce legislation to cement the court’s interpretation as law and propose a constitutional amendment to rectify any ambiguity in the article concerning citizenship.
He said doing so would bring the citizenship clause in line with Article 8 (2) of the Federal Constitution, which does not allow discrimination.
He also said the home ministry and the national registration department (JPN) must immediately revise their internal procedures so that no one would suffer from discrimination.
Srividhya Ganapathy of the National Council of Women’s Organisations (NCWO) said anecdotal evidence showed that babies born to Malaysian women with foreign husbands in the 1980s and 1990s were given citizenship.
She said the situation changed over the last three decades because policymakers’ interpretation of the constitution had changed.