Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah
LAWAS (Feb 24): The long time taken to approve citizenship applications under Article 15A of the Federal Constitution has caused an excruciating suffering for applicants because they are denied of their rights to education, says Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah.
The Minister for Women, Childhood and Community Wellbeing development said this in response to the plight of Jeanny Lianna Ating, 9, who was stopped from attending school due to her citizenship status.
She said Jeanny’s case involved two ministries, namely Home Ministry and Ministry of Education.
“The Home Ministry is responsible and has the power under Article 15A of the Federal Constitution.
“The time and period for action taken to approve or not for citizenship applications takes too long. The pain and suffering that these applications have to go through are excruciating because they are being denied of their rights to education,” said Fatimah.
Article 15A states that the federal government may, in such special circumstances as it thinks fit, cause any person under the age of 21 years to be registered as a citizen.
Fatimah said she had previously requested a Special Committee on Citizenship, formed under Article 15A of the Federal Constitution to be set up during the time of former Home Minister Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi.
The committee was halted during the Pakatan Harapan government, but was reinstated by the new government.
On education, Fatimah said the power lies in the hands of the Minister of Education.
“The previous education minister Dr Maszlee Malik (through administrative means, as long as the child can show proof that his or her application for citizenship is being processed) and his zero-reject policy said stateless children were allowed to go to school.
“Children are not denied of their basic rights to education even though they are stateless through special administrative means,” Fatimah said.
She also said she had written to the present Minister of Education Dr Mohd Radzi Md Jidin in Oct last year requesting him to allow stateless children to attend school.
“But no reply,” she said.
Jeanny is supposed to be in Primary 3 this year, but she cannot attend school due to her citizenship status.
Her birth certificate listed her as non-citizen as her mother is an Indonesian.
Her parents were late in registering their marriage which resulted in Jeanny and her four older siblings to be non-citizens despite being born to a Malaysian father.