MalayMail- Nov 20
One of the requirements necessary in order to qualify to be a Malaysian citizen is you need to be a person of good character. But who decides if your character is “good” or not, and how? And why do you need to be of “good character”? If you never had to think about this before, you probably don’t fall within these three categories of those seeking to be called Malaysians: Malaysian men’s foreign wives; those born in Malaysia before Merdeka Day; or those who want to be a naturalized citizen. For these three types or categories of citizenship applications (under the Federal Constitution’s Article 15(1), Article 16, Article 19), being of “good character” is one of the requirements you must fulfil. The Federal Constitution does not actually define the term “good character”. But the Malaysian government has in practice required the police to certify that a person applying for citizenship has good conduct. Apart from the requirement of differing length of years of stay in Malaysia before applying for citizenship as well as being of good character, Article 16 and Article 19 applicants have the additional requirement of having an elementary and adequate knowledge of the Malay language respectively. Having no criminal records seems to be the benchmark set, at least according to parliamentary replies. Read more at: https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2023/11/20/becoming-a-malaysian-officially-five-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-good-character-test/102935
