She Was Raised for 12 Years as a Malaysian Citizen — Why Was Her Citizenship Questioned When She Applied for a MyKad?

If a child grows up in Malaysia, holds a birth certificate stating “Warganegara” (citizen), and has been raised by the same family for 12 years, most parents would naturally believe that the child’s legal identity is already settled. This case, however, reveals how a seemingly ordinary application for a MyKad can uncover questions surrounding a child’s birth registration and citizenship more than a decade after birth.

The case concerned a girl who had been raised by T, who was recorded as her mother on the original birth certificate. In 2013, when the child reached the age of 12 and applied for her MyKad, JPN officers became suspicious because her complexion and facial features appeared significantly different from those of the woman recorded as her mother. What initially appeared to be a routine identity card application eventually led to an investigation into the child’s true background.

During the investigation, T eventually admitted that she was not the child’s biological mother. The facts set out in the judgment traced the circumstances back to June 2001. At that time, an Indonesian woman came to T’s home carrying a baby girl who was only two or three days old. The woman explained that she already had several children and did not have the financial means to continue caring for the newborn. She therefore handed the baby to T to be cared for.

T decided to take the child in out of sympathy and goodwill. However, in order to obtain a birth registration for the child, she sought assistance from an elderly woman, who has since passed away, and falsely represented herself as the child’s biological mother. As a result, the child obtained her first birth certificate, which recorded her nationality as “Warganegara”.

The child subsequently grew up in the family and lived in Malaysia under the identity of a Malaysian citizen for 12 years. It was only when she applied for her MyKad in 2013 that the original registration came under scrutiny. The investigation eventually uncovered the false information that had been provided at the time of her birth registration.

Once the original registration was questioned, the child’s birth records went through several significant changes. The first birth certificate had recorded her as a citizen on the basis of the false information. Following the investigation, JPN relied on section 27(3) of the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1957 to amend the registration. The parents’ information was changed to “Maklumat Tidak Diperolehi” or “Information Not Obtained”, while the child’s nationality was recorded as “Belum Ditentukan” or “Not Determined”.

The adoptive father subsequently took another step to regularise the child’s position by completing a lawful adoption under the Adoption Act 1952. A new birth certificate was issued following the adoption. However, the completion of the adoption process did not resolve the child’s citizenship. The new birth certificate ultimately recorded her nationality as “Bukan Warganegara” or “Non-Citizen”.

This raised one of the central legal questions in the case: why does lawful adoption not automatically give a child Malaysian citizenship?

The matter eventually came before the courts, with the parents seeking to establish the child’s entitlement to Malaysian citizenship under the Federal Constitution. In April 2026, the Court of Appeal dismissed their appeal and addressed the constitutional requirements that had to be satisfied.

One of the key issues concerned Paragraph 1(e) of the Second Schedule to the Federal Constitution. The parents sought to establish that the child satisfied the relevant requirements for citizenship. However, the Court emphasised that the applicant had to establish the necessary constitutional conditions, including the requirement concerning whether the child had acquired another nationality at birth. Where the identity and nationality of the biological parents could not be established, the Court could not simply assume that the child had no foreign nationality.

This issue was closely connected to the principle of jus sanguinis, or citizenship by descent. The Court emphasised that, for the purposes of Article 14(1)(b) of the Federal Constitution, the reference to the child’s “parents” concerns the biological parents rather than parents who subsequently became the child’s legal parents through adoption.

Accordingly, even though the adoptive parents had completed a lawful adoption under the Adoption Act 1952, their status as legal parents could not replace the identity and nationality of the child’s biological parents at the time of birth. Adoption may establish a legal parent-child relationship, but it does not change the child’s biological descent or automatically create Malaysian citizenship.

The parents also attempted to argue that the child should be treated as an abandoned infant and sought to rely on Paragraph 19B of the Second Schedule to the Federal Constitution. If accepted, this could potentially have provided a constitutional presumption relevant to the child’s citizenship.

The Court of Appeal, however, rejected this argument as well. The child had not been discovered abandoned without any information concerning her background. Instead, she had been personally handed over by her biological mother to T. In the Court’s view, this was materially different from the circumstances contemplated by the constitutional provision concerning a newborn child who is found abandoned. The circumstances were instead more consistent with a private arrangement between the biological mother and another person.

The child therefore could not simply be treated as an abandoned infant merely because her biological mother had subsequently ceased to care for her.

The Court of Appeal ultimately maintained the outcome against the parents. The central question was not whether the adoptive parents had genuinely cared for the child, nor whether the child had spent many years living in Malaysia. The crucial issue was whether the applicants could establish, in accordance with the Federal Constitution, that the child had the necessary legal basis for Malaysian citizenship at birth.

The case carries an important warning for adoptive families. Parents may act out of genuine compassion and believe that providing a child with an identity as quickly as possible is in the child’s best interests. However, providing inaccurate or false information during birth registration may create a much greater problem in the future. What may appear to be a solution when a child is born can become a major obstacle when the child’s identity and citizenship are investigated years later.

The case also demonstrates that birth registration, adoption and citizenship are three separate legal matters. Having a birth certificate does not necessarily mean that the information recorded on it can never be questioned. Completing a lawful adoption does not automatically make a child a Malaysian citizen. Where the identity and nationality of the biological parents cannot be established, determining the child’s citizenship at birth may become a highly complex legal issue.

For families facing similar circumstances, one of the most important steps is to preserve as much information as possible concerning the child’s birth and biological parents. Any documents or evidence capable of establishing the identity and nationality of the biological parents, as well as the circumstances surrounding the child’s birth, may become critical evidence in future citizenship proceedings.

Most importantly, parents should never provide false information simply to ensure that a child obtains a birth certificate. Even where the intention is to help the child, an inaccurate registration may be investigated many years later. The person who ultimately bears the consequences may not be the adult who made the decision, but the child who has spent his or her entire childhood growing up in Malaysia.

The legal lesson from this case is clear: adoption can establish a legal parent-child relationship, but it does not automatically change a child’s biological descent or confer Malaysian citizenship. Likewise, a birth certificate stating “Warganegara” cannot replace the constitutional legal requirements for citizenship.

For any matter involving an abandoned child, informal adoption, birth registration or a child’s citizenship status, the real objective should not simply be to obtain an identity document for the child today. It is to ensure that the child has a truthful, lawful and legally sustainable identity for the rest of his or her life.