PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal has upheld a High Court decision declaring that a housewife, who was abandoned shortly after her birth before being adopted, is a Malaysian citizen.
A three-judge panel led by Datuk Seri Mohd Firuz Jaffril said the 37-year-old woman had crossed the threshold in proving she was indeed an abandoned baby.
He said there was no evidence before the court that the woman’s biological mother was not permanently resident in the federation or at the place where she was found.
“We find no basis to disturb the High Court judge’s finding that the respondent (the woman) was an abandoned infant within the meaning of Section 19B of Part III of the Second Schedule of the Federal Constitution.
Section 19B of Part II states that a newborn child found abandoned or exposed at a particular place is presumed to have been born at that place of a mother permanently residing at that place.
Firuz said the woman had fulfilled the requirements under Article 14 (1) (b) read together with Section 1 (a) of Part II and section 19B of Part III of the second schedule of the Federal Constitution.
“We are therefore satisfied that the respondent is a Malaysian citizen by operation of law,” said Firuz, who sat with Datuk Ismail Brahim and Datuk Dean Wayne Daly.
In dismissing the appeals by the National Registration Department director-general, the home minister, Home Ministry and the government, he said the High Court had correctly appreciated the evidence and applied the principles laid down by the Federal Court in the case of CCH & Anor v Registrar of Births and Deaths.
That case, he said, establishes the approach in interpreting Section 19B.
The court ordered the appellants to pay RM10,000 in costs.
The woman was found abandoned shortly after birth in May 1989 in Kepong, Kuala Lumpur, and was raised by adoptive parents.
Following the registration of her adoption in 2009, NRD issued a birth certificate naming her adopted father as her father, but her citizenship status was recorded as “yet to be determined”.
The Court of Appeal clarified that it is settled law that a person cannot obtain the right to citizenship by virtue of lawful adoptive parents, but the woman’s entitlement arose from the constitutional presumption applicable to abandoned newborns.
Senior federal counsel Norazlinawati Mohd Arshad and federal counsel Jicent Yee Xin Sheng appeared for the government while lawyers M. Yogamani and M. Shahgambahri represented the woman.