Court of Appeal upholds citizenship for six stateless family members, affirming their constitutional rights and marriage registration without identity cards.
PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal today upheld a High Court decision granting Malaysian citizenship to six stateless members of the same family spanning three generations.
A three-judge bench dismissed appeals brought by the Registrar of Births and Deaths, Registrar-General of Births and Deaths, Director-General of National Registration, Minister of Home Affairs and the Government of Malaysia.
Justice Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, delivering the court’s unanimous decision online, said the family had successfully established their case for citizenship by operation of law under Article 14(1)(b) of the Federal Constitution.
He stated the respondents proved on balance of probabilities that they fulfilled the requirement that one of their parents is a Malaysian citizen.
Justice Mohd Nazlan also clarified that nothing in the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976 requires an identity card as a prerequisite for marriage registration.
The Court of Appeal found no appealable errors in the High Court’s judgment warranting appellate intervention.
In May last year, the High Court allowed the family’s lawsuit and declared they were entitled to automatic Malaysian citizenship.
The High Court had ruled that stateless persons in Malaysia have the right to register their marriage under Malaysian laws even without having a Malaysian identity card.
The case involves K. Kamaladevi, her two children, and her three grandchildren whose citizenship struggles date back to their grandparents born in Malaya before Malaysia’s formation in 1963.
Family lawyer New Sin Yew told media the decision affirms that stateless persons have the right to marry under Malaysian law without identification cards.
