KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 19 — Advocacy group Family Frontiers and the Malaysian government will look into settling a court case on Malaysian citizenship issues, ahead of the Federal Court’s March 10 hearing of the constitutional challenge which has gone on for more than four years.
In this court case, Family Frontiers wants the Federal Court to hear and decide on three legal questions, including whether Malaysian mothers’ overseas-born children should also be entitled to be Malaysians automatically.
Family Frontiers had also asked the court to decide if the Federal Constitution’s prohibition of gender discrimination also applies to Malaysia’s citizenship laws, which currently only allows Malaysian fathers’ overseas-born children to become Malaysians automatically.
Will the case be settled before the Federal Court gets to decide on these legal issues?
The Federal Court has previously rescheduled hearing dates for the court case while waiting for the government and Family Frontiers to try to reach a settlement.
The Federal Court was initially expected to hear the case on December 10 last year, but then fixed January 27 to wait for updates on settlement efforts.
The January 27 court date was later cancelled and January 28 was fixed for case management instead.
During the January 28 case management, the Federal Court scheduled February 21 as the next case management date and March 10 as the hearing date.
When contacted by Malay Mail, Family Frontiers’ lawyer Abraham Au confirmed the latest dates and said “parties are to explore settlement before the hearing date” of March 10.
While Family Frontiers and six affected Malaysian mothers had in December 2020 filed the court challenge together, Au confirmed that the six mothers would not be part of the settlement talks.
This is because the six affected mothers’ overseas-born children have since been recognised as Malaysian citizens while the court case was still ongoing.
This has been a long drawn-out case, with Family Frontiers first winning in the High Court in September 2021, with the judge deciding that Malaysian mothers’ overseas-born children are entitled to Malaysian citizenship automatically.
But the Court of Appeal in a 2-1 decision in August 2022 overturned the High Court decision, and the Federal Court in December 2022 allowed Family Frontiers to pursue its appeal.
This is the appeal that is now scheduled for the Federal Court’s hearing on March 10.
New law not yet gazetted
While the court case was still going on, the Malaysian government on March 25, 2024 tabled a proposed law in Parliament, with the aim of changing the Federal Constitution’s citizenship laws to enable Malaysian mothers’ overseas-born children to automatically be Malaysians.
The Dewan Rakyat on October 17, 2024 and the Dewan Negara on December 3, 2024 voted in favour of and passed the proposed law, also known as the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2024.
But to become law, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong must approve or grant royal assent to the amendment to the Federal Constitution, and it also has to be published in a government gazette.
At the time of writing, Malay Mail’s checks of the Malaysian government’s Federal Legislation Portal shows that the new law has yet to be gazetted.
This means the amendment does not have legal effect now and is not yet legally enforceable.
