Call on authorities to expedite registration of ‘stateless children’
SIBU: The federal Home Ministry and National Registration Department have to undertake the documentation of ‘stateless children’ with utmost urgency.
Bukit Assek assemblywoman Irene Chang, who called for this in a press statement yesterday, said the government must ensure transparency in approving the applications for citizenship.
“And it must also be said that despite various efforts made by different quarters on the ground, there appears to be no such corresponding effort made by either the NRD or the Home Ministry in processing these applications.
“In the majority of cases, it appears that the authorities would sit on these applications before informing the applicants that their applications are not successful,” she lamented.
Chang pointed out that the law needed urgent amendments to make it absolute for the ministry to give its grounds of rejection of documentation applications.
According to her, the NRD website has stated that such applications shall be processed and completed within a year from the date of complete application.
While commending the department’s efforts in addressing the documentation problems, she said such guidelines had not been upheld in many cases.
“Several cases demonstrate that the relevant authorities have not upheld what’s stated clearly on their public portal. In fact, an average time for a reply from these authorities is at least two years,” she claimed.
Chang said with the technological advances whereby most information and applications are accessible online, there should be no reason for the delay.
“NRD should not mislead the public, making them believe that their applications shall be completed within one year.
“If NRD and the Home Ministry work in collaboration electronically, the process should be more prompt and expeditious,” she said, adding that either NRD or the Home Ministry should be accounted for all the delays in processing the applications.
“More importantly, the Home Ministry should make it a practice to issue the grounds for unsuccessful applications.
“I say this because in all letters of rejection from Home Ministry, no reason is given for such rejection and the applicants would, therefore, be unable to try to make right what was lacking in the first place that led to the rejection of their application,” she said.
Chang said this presents a sad case, especially when the child concerned would have attained the age of maturity and would suffer the stigma of being stateless.
“Despite living in Malaysia his whole life, a young adult would not be able to enjoy all his citizenship rights because he does not have identification papers.
“This can be avoided should the applicants be given the reasons for the rejection, so that the adoptive parents or guardians would be able to appeal or reapply, and to provide the Home Ministry with the necessary information and/or documents,” she said.
Chang also appealed to the government to make known to the public the conditions that one should fulfil for a successful application for citizenship.