LFL drops contempt bid after stateless teen submits IC application

Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) will not be filing contempt proceedings against Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail and the National Registration Department (NRD) director-general.

This is because a client of the NGO, 17-year-old CJ, submitted his application form for a MyKad this morning, said the group’s adviser, N Surendran, during a press conference outside the Putrajaya NRD office today.

Surendran said CJ should receive his MyKad within the next 30 days, in line with the court order granted by Kuala Lumpur High Court judge Alice Loke last month.

He lamented that CJ should not have had to go to court to obtain his citizenship, blaming those in power for their lack of action in changing policies to accommodate the acquisition of citizenship for eligible individuals.

“Once upon a time, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim stood with me out in the street fighting for stateless people. That’s a matter of public record.

“And the prime minister promised me personally 10 years ago that the moment he becomes prime minister, he will resolve the citizenship problem for all those outstanding cases with a stroke of a pen... Where is that promise now?” said Surendran (above, second right).

LFL co-founder Latheefa Koya, who was present, aimed fire at Pakatan Harapan, telling the coalition to cease its double standards.

“We are not scolding the subordinate officers of the NRD, who are following orders.

“But the problem is those who are in power, who have specifically put in their manifesto to get the power, that they will solve this statelessness problem, (but they are) still doing things the same way as those they complained of and (when they) changed power, they came back as ministers and are still misbehaving,” she said.

She was referring to the controversy involving seven “heritage” football players, whose citizenship was questioned after the International Federation of Association Football (Fifa) found that the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) submitted allegedly falsified documents to confirm the eligibility of the players.

Yesterday, the NRD denied that it had obstructed CJ’s attempts to apply for a MyKad, saying that it was following existing laws and regulations to deal with his mother's alleged document fraud, which she committed in 2008 when she applied for his birth certificate.

The NRD said the case also involved the alleged illegal birth certificate issued by a hospital in Kuala Lumpur, which the NRD said has been blacklisted.

Hence, the department said it must first carry out document correction and verification before it can issue any identity documents.

Meanwhile, Saifuddin defended the NRD’s actions on similar lines.

According to a Bernama report today, he reportedly told reporters in Alor Setar that the department has no issues complying with the court order, but the process must begin with the issuance of a valid birth certificate through late registration.

“This process only involves completing the necessary forms and verifying witnesses. Claims that the NRD is complicating the procedure or requiring the support of elected representatives are untrue,” he was quoted as saying.

‘So difficult and bureaucratic’

However, Surendran today said CJ had been subjected to a “bureaucratic nightmare” as the NRD gave the boy a checklist for 62 documents and 24 categories of forms.

NRD also supplied CJ with a form for the late registration of a MyKad, which Surendran said was inappropriate.

“Ours is not a case of late registration - it’s a case of denial by the government,” he said.

Moving forward, Surendran expressed hope that the government will change its policies on citizenship to increase access to eligible applicants.

“(The government must) change the policy of trying to make it so difficult and so bureaucratic for ordinary people to apply for citizenship. Change that. That’s what we are saying,” he urged.

Among the issues is how the government follows the letter of the law while ignoring requirements laid out in the Federal Constitution, he claimed.

This creates a burden for those who lack all the necessary documents, especially those from rural areas, he added.

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