PENDAFTAR BESAR KELAHIRAN DAN KEMATIAN JABATAN PENDAFTARAN NEGARA MALAYSIA

On the court record

Illustrates how the courts determine citizenship by operation of law, resolve the position of adopted and illegitimate children, and give effect to the safeguards against statelessness against the records the registration authority maintains.

The Pendaftar Besar Kelahiran dan Kematian, Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara Malaysia (the Registrar General of Births and Deaths of the National Registration Department) appears in this corpus principally as a respondent, and occasionally as an appellant, in constitutional litigation concerning citizenship and the registration of births. The decisions turn overwhelmingly on citizenship by operation of law under Article 14(1)(b) of the Federal Constitution read with Part II of the Second Schedule, and on the interaction of the jus soli and jus sanguinis principles. Recurring situations include applications for a declaration that a child be recognised as a citizen, the position of an adopted child and whether citizenship passes on adoption, the status of an illegitimate child and the transmission of citizenship through descent, and cases in which a child would otherwise be stateless. Because the Registrar General maintains the registers of births and issues birth certificates and related documents, the office is named as the authority whose records and decisions are in issue, and the relief sought typically includes an order that the appropriate entry be made or document issued. The corpus also reflects the appellate treatment of these questions, with the Registrar General sometimes appealing a declaration made below. These matters engage the constitutional safeguards against statelessness and the evidential questions that arise where the circumstances of a birth are contested. The matters are decided in the High Court and the Court of Appeal, where a line of decisions on the operation of Article 14(1)(b) has developed. Collectively the decisions in which the Registrar General of Births and Deaths is a party illustrate how the courts determine citizenship by operation of law, resolve the position of adopted and illegitimate children, and give effect to the safeguards against statelessness against the records the registration authority maintains. Several of the reported matters also engage the evidential questions that arise where the circumstances of a birth or the identity of a parent are contested, and the documents the registration authority requires before an entry is made. Across these decisions the office appears as the custodian of the registers whose records must be reconciled with the court's determination of a person's citizenship and status.