The approval of citizenship for stateless children comes under the jurisdiction of the federal government.
Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Children Development Minister Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah said this in response to Datuk Tiong Thai King (PSB-Dudong) who had asked whether the state government had the authority to approve the citizenship of stateless and undocumented children.
“In Article 74, the Federal Constitution has fixed matters of federal and state laws and the ninth schedule of the federal list in Section 5 where the Federal Citizenship and Foreign Realisation is under the jurisdiction of the federal government,” Fatimah said.
Tiong then brought to her attention a scenario in a family where one of the siblings is not a citizen while the rest of the siblings have Malaysian citizenship.
Fatimah said that when a child is born out of wedlock, the child will have to follow the mother’s nationality, meaning if the mother is an Indonesian, the child is also an Indonesian.
“If the parents want to apply for citizenship for their children, they can do so by applying under Article 15 (A),” she said.
