The 47-year-old Selangor resident, who wants to be identified as Andy, told FMT his son was born in Malaysia in 2005 and the national registration department (JPN) registered him as non-citizen because Andy was not married to the mother at the time. She is Indonesian.

Andy registered his marriage at JPN in 2006. In August 2020, the Shah Alam High Court ruled that the boy was Andy’s legitimate son from the date of his marriage.

However, during a hearing for the son’s citizenship application last Friday, the same court held that Andy’s son must follow the citizenship of his mother since he was illegitimate at the time of birth.

“My son has been staying in Malaysia since the day he was born, but he remains stateless,” Andy lamented.

“What kind of life will he have? He cannot work or enjoy any benefits of citizenship. He has no passport and so he has never travelled abroad.

“He doesn’t have a future. In front of him lies only darkness.”

Andy’s lawyer, Jasmine Wong, told FMT the Shah Alam court’s decision was in line with a landmark Federal Court ruling in May, in which a 10-year-old boy’s citizenship application was dismissed as he was illegitimate at the time of his birth.

The Federal Court ruled that the boy, born to a Malaysian father and a Filipino mother, was not entitled to Malaysian citizenship as his parents were married five months after his birth.

Delivering the ruling, judge Rohana Yusuf, who is also the Court of Appeal president, said an illegitimate child would be a citizen of his mother’s country, according to the Federal Constitution.

“This is the same reason used to dismiss Andy’s case,” Wong said.

She added that the citizenship application was dismissed also because the Shah Alam court held that Andy could not prove his son was not a citizen of another country.

A letter provided by the Indonesian embassy in Kuala Lumpur states only that the son was not registered in the embassy’s passport database system.

Under Section 1(e) of Part II of the Second Schedule of the Federal Constitution, citizenship can be granted to anyone born in Malaysia who has not obtained citizenship of any foreign country within one year of the date of his or her birth.