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It is sickening what some people might resort to in order to gain political exposure at the expense of others.

Last Thursday, on the last day of the Johor state assembly sitting, the honourable Umno state assemblyperson for Jorak proposed that that a special exam should be carried out for students in which if they failed the Bahasa Malaysia proficiency test, these students’ citizenship should be stripped!

Whilst I have no issue and indeed support the usage of Bahasa Malaysia being our national language, such a radical suggestion is most worrying.

Under Part III of the federal constitution, there are essentially four methods a person can obtain citizenship.

i. By operation of law and that is to say father is Malaysian (for registered marriage) or mother (for unregistered marriage) is Malaysian;

ii. By virtue of spouse being Malaysian, a person can apply to be a Malaysian;

iii. Naturalisation - this is the only method which stipulates the requirement of national language fluency;

iv. By incorporation of territory;

Furthermore, there is no express clause in the federal constitution which states that citizenship can be revoked on the ground of failing to pass a language proficiency test.

Therefore, what the Umno assemblyperson has suggested is not only untenable but also unconstitutional.

Citizenship is one of the most precious things the constitution has granted to us. It is symbol of identity and it comes with many rights endowed by the most important piece of legislature in our land. A Malaysian, no matter rich or poor, man or woman has certain inalienable right such as right to vote, freedom of movement, equality before the law to name a few. It cannot be simply taken away just because of failing a language proficiency test.

‘Al-Mau’unah members are still Malaysians’

A person can be convicted of most heinous crime and yet the government has no basis of making him stateless just because he is a bad person. For example, the Al-Ma’unah group that raided the Malaysian Army Reserve camp at Sauk, Perak in early July 2000, and subsequently being charged with waging war against the Agong, are still Malaysians. No attempt was even made to strip them of their citizenship.

Now, Umno is proposing to deprive a young person of his lawfully given citizenship just because he failed a test and render him stateless at his own home is nothing less than shocking and totally irresponsible. His or her entire future could be jeopardised forever just because he is not fluent enough in our national language.

As mentioned above, a man can only pass on his citizenship to his offspring if his marriage is registered. Supposedly, if a young man is stripped of his citizenship, then his son/daughter cannot be Malaysian unless the union of parents are non-registered which in turn will lead to other legal and moral issues for having children out of wedlock.  

Common sense dictates that if there is indeed a need to increase proficiency of Bahasa Malaysia or if there is indeed a drop in the standard of the national language, then it is incumbent upon the government to better restructure their teaching module and methods to rectify the problem. Dialogue and consultation between the parents and teachers should be more frequently engaged to find the root of the problem.

Threatening people with loss of citizenship is not a sane suggestion.

Maybe, this irresponsible suggestion has something to do with the upcoming Umno convention but whatever it is, politicians must learn to make responsible statement and not simply utter statement that not only is seditious in nature but more worrying, potentially depriving lawful Malaysians of its lawful given right.


JIMMY PUAH WEE TSE is Johor PKR legal bureau chief-cum-state assemblyperson for Bukit Batu.

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