MIRI, Oct 27 — The Sarawak state government is awaiting the Home Ministry’s next move after a landmark High Court decision instructing National Registration Department (JPN) to grant citizenship status to a child born to a Malaysian father and Chinese national mother.

Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah said this when asked on the next course of action for the state committee facilitating citizenship applications from stateless individuals in Sarawak.

"We will wait for further instruction from the Home Ministry,” she said in a press conference yesterday after chairing a meeting on stateless applicants in Miri which was also attended by Welfare director Noriah Ahmad and JPN assistant registration officer Dominic Upai Lagan.

The six applicants from Miri Division included a single mother who was unable to send her kids to school and who were not eligible for welfare assistance due to not possessing Malaysian citizenship documents.

JPN has been moving its services closer to the community with its Kuching-based mobile bus facilities which have been mobilized to Song in central Sarawak and Beluru in the north apart from its mobile teams to the interior previously.

Fatimah urged the public to make sure that all births are reported without delay to avoid complications in applying for birth certificate and later identity card as the lack of it will affect the lives of their children later.

The state committee, which she chairs and was re-activated under the Perikatan Nasional (PN) Plus government, reviews about 100 applications from stateless persons in every meeting, including substantial number of stateless children born to Malaysian father and mother of foreign nationality.

On Oct 25 this year, a High Court set a precedent with a landmark decision by granting citizenship to a stateless girl born in the country to a Malaysian father and a Chinese national mother.

In his judgment, Justice Datuk Abdul Wahab Mohamed said the five-year-old child has fulfilled several conditions to be declared a citizen, including being born in Malaysia after Malaysia Day and one of the parents was a Malaysian.

Fatimah welcomed this court decision that could change the process of dealing with the perennial complicated issue of applications by stateless persons under this category, saying they had faced financial and emotional burden in their bid for recognition.

So far, the Home Ministry has not indicated that it will appeal the latest court decision but it previously had appealed against another landmark High Court decision to allow a child born to a Malaysian mother abroad to be accorded Malaysian citizenship. — Borneo Post