PUTRAJAYA: A Cabinet paper on amending the Federal Constitution to allow mothers to pass on their citizenship to their overseas-born children will be tabled next month, says home minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail.
Saifuddin said the home ministry has formed a committee to study the legal aspects of the proposed amendment.
“We will start the (Cabinet) paper at the home ministry first for the Cabinet’s policy approval,” he told a press conference today, adding that he will work with the law ministry on the Cabinet paper if instructed by the Cabinet.
Last week, law and institutional reform minister Azalina Othman Said said a Cabinet memo proposing an amendment to the constitution to allow mothers to pass on their citizenship to their overseas-born children will be submitted soon.
She said the memo would be put up by her and Saifuddin.
As it stands, children born overseas to Malaysian women are not entitled to automatic citizenship as the Federal Constitution only provides for citizenship through fathers.
Last year, the Court of Appeal overturned a landmark High Court ruling in 2021 that the word “father” in a constitutional provision could be construed to mean “mothers” or “parents”, thereby allowing citizenship by operation of law to their children born abroad.
The appellate court ruled that children born overseas to Malaysian women were not entitled to automatic citizenship as the Federal Constitution only provided for citizenship through fathers.
Meanwhile, Saifuddin said the ministry had received 54,000 citizenship applications from 2017 to 2022, of which 7,000 had been approved.
“We are processing 36,000 applications, while the rest have either been cancelled or rejected,” he said.
