Court grants adjournment of hearing

PUTRAJAYA: A nine-man bench of the Federal Court yesterday granted a final adjournment of the hearing of the appeals of five cases involving Malaysian-born children over the granting of citizenship.

Senior federal counsel Suzana Atan informed the court that she was instructed by AttorneyGeneral Tommy Thomas to seek a postponement of the hearing because he needed time to look into the applications.

She requested for six weeks. She said the Attorney-General’s Chambers (A-GC) could not proceed with the appeal as Thomas had not looked at the files or given his views on the cases.

Suzana told the court that the A-GC had not received any instructions from Home Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who was on medical leave and returned to work only this month.

Chief Justice Tan Sri Richard Malanjum, who chaired the bench, set Oct 25 as the next hearing date for the appeals, and said the matter would proceed on that day come “rain or shine”.

Malanjum said he was concerned about the welfare of the children if there was a further adjournment of the appeals.

He allowed an application by the counsel to prohibit the media from publishing the names of the children and their parents or adoptive parents.

The other judges were Court of Appeal president Tan Sri Ahmad Maarop, Chief Judge of Malaya Tan Sri Zaharah Ibrahim, Federal Court judges Tan Sri Azahar Mohamed, Tan Sri Aziah Ali, Datuk Alizatul Khair Osman Khairuddin, Datuk Rohana Yusuf and Datuk Mohd Zawawi Salleh and Court of Appeal judge Datuk Umi Kalthum Abdul Majid.

This is the fifth time the hearing of the appeals has been postponed since March.

On Sept 11, the Federal Court granted leave to appeal on legal questions, including whether the reference to blood or lineage was required under the Federal Constitution in determining the citizenship of a child.

The first two cases involved a 20-year-old whose birth parents were unknown and they were adopted by Malaysian parents and an 8-year-old boy who was born to a Malaysian father and a Thai mother, who were not legally married when he was born.

The Court of Appeal last year rejected their appeals in respect to their citizenship bids after ruling that they should had also shown proof that they were not citizens of other countries.

Two other cases involved two boys, aged 16 and 17, respectively, with unknown birth parents and who were separately adopted by two Malaysian couples.

The fifth case involved a 13year-old girl who successfully won her citizenship bid in the Court of Appeal, but her matter was brought to the Federal Court when the government appealed.

Datuk Dr Cyrus Das, one of the counsel appearing for the parties in two cases, said the welfare of the children, especially teenagers, would be affected if they did not have identity cards and could not apply for driving licences and open bank accounts.