Lawyer Annou Xavier says an eight-year-old boy’s application today has been dismissed at a cost of RM4,000, to be paid to the defendant, the government. ― Picture by Choo Choy May

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 25 ― An eight-year-old boy has once more lost in his two-year legal battle to be granted Malaysian citizenship.

The boy's lawyer, Annou Xavier, said the matter was decided by High Court judge Datuk Nik Hazmat Nik Mohamad in chambers.

“His application today has been dismissed at a cost of RM4,000, to be paid to the defendant, the government.

“The judge gave very brief grounds, very brief, not formal grounds. One of the grounds is that the minister who decides the status of citizenships has a discretion to give or not to give,” he told reporters outside the courtroom.

The minister in question is the home minister.

Annou later said he will confer his client on whether to appeal the decision.

The boy's legal fight for citizenship began two years ago, when his adopted father, Yu Meng Queng, sued the director-general of the National Registration Department (NRD), the Home Ministry and the federal government, after authorities twice rejected his application to be recognised as a Malaysian with no reasons stated.

Yu, a lawyer and a single father, adopted the boy — born to a Malaysian father and Indonesian mother — soon after his birth on May 19, 2008 and obtained an adoption order from the George Town Sessions Court in Penang on September 24 the same year.

Yu passed away in August this year, after battling leukaemia and his son has since been adopted by Yu’s legal firm partner, KP Tan, who is now pursuing the case.

Last year, the Kuala Lumpur High Court dismissed the boy’s lawsuit against Putrajaya, and ordered the minor to pay RM1,000 in costs.

Yu had then pursued the matter to the Court of Appeal, which instructed the High Court to first hear the merits of the citizenship application before striking it out.

The boy had sought a declaration that he is a Malaysian citizen under Articles 14 and/or 15A of the Federal Constitution, and that he be issued a birth certificate and MyKad stating that he is a citizen.

Article 15A of the Federal Constitution provides special powers to the federal administration to register anyone under 21 years of age as a citizen.

* A previous version of this article erroneously stated Datuk Asmabi Mohamad as the High Court judge in this case. The article has since been corrected.