Members of Family Frontiers hold up placards demanding equal citizenship rights for Malaysians at the Kuala Lumpur High Court April 27, 2021. — Picture by Hari Anggara
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KUALA LUMPUR, May 6 — The Malaysian government today failed in its bid to have the courts throw out a lawsuit by several Malaysian mothers who want their children born abroad to automatically be Malaysian citizens.
High Court judge Datuk Akhtar Tahir today dismissed the government’s application to strike out the lawsuit, rejecting the government’s argument that the court case was frivolous.
The judge also said that there was clearly discrimination in Malaysia’s citizenship laws against Malaysian mothers, which he said the government has to justify in the lawsuit.
“In this matter before me, there is an apparent discrimination against the mother and father of the child, but there does not seem to be any apparent justification for such a discrimination and the non-justification becomes even more clear and even more glaring if you look at other provisions in the same Article for citizenship,” he said.
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