Kuala Lumpur: The High Court in Shah Alam declared a 10-year-old stateless girl, whose biological parents are unknown and is now the adopted child of a couple in Kuala Lumpur, as a Malaysian yesterday.
The High Court ordered the authorities to give the girl a new birth certificate recognising her as a Malaysian, declaring her current birth certificate which recorded her as a non-Malaysian as unlawful.
The girl’s adoptive parents’ lawyer Sharmini Thiruchelvam told Malay Mail that High Court judge Datuk Khadijah Idris had found that the child was born within Malaysia and was a “newborn baby found exposed” or who was found abandoned, after having considered all the evidence produced in court.
According to Sharmini, the High Court also said this finding of the child abandoned at birth in Malaysia “triggered the presumption” that the child was born to a mother who is a permanent resident in Malaysia, in line with Section 19B of Part III of the Second Schedule of the Federal Constitution.
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