Gov't to disclose reasons for citizenship rejection beginning next year
PARLIAMENT | Malaysian women with foreign-born children no longer need to wait in despair without knowing how long the citizenship applications for their children will take or why they failed in their applications.
Deputy Home Minister Mohd Azis Jamman said the government will introduce a new standard operating procedure (SOP) for citizenship applications under Article 15(2) and Article 15A of the Federal Constitution from next year.
PARLIAMENT | Malaysian women with foreign-born children no longer need to wait in despair without knowing how long the citizenship applications for their children will take or why they failed in their applications.
Deputy Home Minister Mohd Azis Jamman (above) said the government will introduce a new standard operating procedure (SOP) for citizenship applications under Article 15(2) and Article 15A of the Federal Constitution from next year.
He told the Dewan Rakyat today that under the new SOP, he said the NRD was required to inform applicants why their citizenship application was being turned down.
Currently, he said there was no rule requiring the government to furnish reasons if it turns down such applications.
The government will set also timeline to process the citizenship application, he added.
"The processing period for a complete citizenship application starting next year will be three months and 14 days with the NRD and eight months with the Home Ministry," he told M Karupaiya (Harapan-Padang Serai).
He said a processing period or timeline could not be set for those who applied for citizenship under other provisions of the constitution.
This is because these applications have to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis and the documents will be studied thoroughly.
In September, women rights group demanded the government to treat women with foreign-born children equally by granting their children automatic citizenship as allowed for men.
They said such women were in limbo as they had to apply for the children's citizenship under Article 15(2) and 15A of the Federal Constitution and their application was subject to the approval of the authority and they would not be informed of the reasons why their application turned down.
Meanwhile, Azis said the NRD had awarded 24,327 citizenships out of a total of 111,142 applications received between 2013 and 2018.
Out of the approved number, less than 2,000 were awarded to women with foreign-born children.
A total of 1,683 citizenship were given under Article 15(2) and 142 citizenship were awarded under Article 15A of the Constitution, he said.
The government received 24,446 citizenship application under various provisions of the constitution from 2018 to Sept 15, 2019.
This included 4,142 applications done under Article 15(1) of the constitution, 2,253 applications via Article 15(2) and 10,328 applications under Article 15A.
Meanwhile, a total of 1,037 citizenship applications were done under Article 16 and 6,306 applications via Article 19.
"A total of 5,784 applications were approved in the same period," he said.
The largest recipients of Malaysian citizenship were those from Indonesia (2,028 people), India (548), Thailand (416), the Philippines (239) and Vietnam (130).
Meanwhile, Azis also said there is no need for the government to set up a royal commission of inquiry for the recent cases of fake MyKads being sold to Chinese nationals.
The police were given full authority to probe the fake MyKad syndicate and six people were charged in court while 20 others, who were nabbed last month, were still being probed, according to him.
"So, there is no need to set up a separate RCI to investigate...If we feel there is a need, then we will think about it," he said.
The police opened an investigation paper after the Immigration Department lodged a report after discovering that a Chinese national had applied for a passport using a fake MyKad.
