PUTRAJAYA, Jan 20 — Kedah-born Gopal Muniandy has done all he could to trace his unknown biological parents, but the task is impossible because he was abandoned in an estate...
Abandoned as a child, Kedah man aged 52 back in court for Malaysian citizenship appeal; five adoptees also await their fates At SK Pork Noodles in Kota Damansara, Sabah ‘sang nyuk mee’ is a magnificent bowl of fresh meat, offal and brothThe Court of Appeal today heard arguments on whether an abandoned child can realistically be expected to trace his birth parents to claim Malaysian citizenship.
— Picture by Devan Manuel Unlock 4%* + 10%* p.a. promo rate for 3 months and enjoy FREE RM10 & when you sign up using code VERSAMM10 with min. cash of RM100 today! T&Cs apply.PUTRAJAYA, Jan 20 — Kedah-born Gopal Muniandy has done all he could to trace his unknown biological parents, but the task is impossible because he was abandoned in an estate when he was just a two-year-old child, the Court of Appeal heard today. His lawyer Surendra Ananth was arguing why his client Gopal — who will be turning 53 this year but is still waiting to officially be a Malaysian — should be declared a citizen. The Malaysian government has argued that Gopal needs to first trace and find out who his birth parents are, before he can rely on the Federal Constitution to automatically be a Malaysian.“There is no traceable lineage, because he is abandoned. How is he supposed to go and find out who his parents are? It is impossible.”“He went back to the village, he got statutory declarations, he put a newspaper advertisement. So honestly what more is he supposed to do?” Gopal had previously told the courts that his biological parents had left him after birth with a Malaysian woman named P. Rukumani, while a second Malaysian woman named A. Alamaloo had took him in as his adopted son from the age of two.Rukumani confirmed she lived nearby to Gopal in the estate and vaguely remembered his birth parents’ names as “Muniandy” and “Manoranjitham”, while Alamaloo said his birth parents had left him behind to find jobs in other rubber estates and never returned to claim him.Unfortunately, Gopal still does not know who his biological parents are and still cannot find them. “This is a unique case, my client — he can't do anything anymore. This is not one of the cases where his parents are from another country. He has no country to go to,” Surendra said, adding that this man had faced difficulties such as not being able to apply for bank loans or getting jobs. “Somehow he has managed to raise his family. All he wants now is to end his life as a Malaysian,” he said. In this case, Gopal is seeking to rely on the Federal Constitution to be automatically a Malaysian, specifically Section 1 of Part II of the Second Schedule. Section 1 is known to be the law that protects persons born in Malaysia from becoming stateless, if they are not born a citizen of any other country. The government has been argued that Gopal needs to first prove he is truly stateless before he can use Section 1, as knowing his birth parents’ citizenship status would show whether he had followed his parents’ nationality and became another country’s citizen. Since Gopal had done all he could to find his birth parents, Surendra argued that his client should be allowed to use Section 1 to be recognised as a Malaysian. Separately in a case involving a child known as L , his lawyer Choo Wei Sern highlighted that the Malaysian adoptive parents have tried to find the unknown biological parents through a newspaper advertisement but there had been no response. “It would be imposing an impossible burden to require them to prove the identity or nationality of the biological mother,” the lawyer said, adding that the only person who might have any information on the birth parents had passed away one year before the National Registration Department began investigating the case. The NRD had probed the case when L applied for his MyKad at age 12, as an NRD officer felt suspicious after noticing that L and the adoptive parents had different facial features and skin colour. On January 26, there will be a case management where the Court of Appeal is expected to fix a decision date for six citizenship cases it had heard today, including Gopal’s case and L’s case. The Court of Appeal panel today was chaired by Datuk Azhahari Kamal Ramli, with the two other judges being Datuk Faizah Jamaludin and Datuk Hayatul Akmal Abdul Aziz. Abandoned as a child, Kedah man aged 52 back in court for Malaysian citizenship appeal; five adoptees also await their fates Federal Court declares stateless KL-born child adopted by Penang couple a Malaysian citizen, orders issuance of new birth certificate
Malaysian Statelessness Issues Court Of Appeal Malaysia Federal Constitution Section 1(E) Unknown Biological Parents PUTRAJAYA Citizenship Cases
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