KOTA KINABALU: The High Court here on Wednesday allowed an application by Abdul Manap bin Bakusai @ Abu Bakar and his three children from Pitas to correct their MyKad records to reflect their religion as Christian, after finding that the National Registration Department (NRD) had wrongly recorded their details.
In delivering her grounds of judgment, Judge Datuk Celestina Stuel Galid raised serious concern over the Department’s practice of assigning a person’s religion without a proper factual or legal basis.
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She ruled that the case did not involve renunciation of Islam, accepting evidence that the plaintiffs and their families had always practised Christianity, supported by identity documents, baptism records and letters from churches.
The judge said similar errors had surfaced in earlier cases, where religious entries were inserted based on assumptions or even contrary to clear instructions given by applicants, pointing to a recurring administrative problem.
Describing the situation as troubling, particularly for illiterate rural applicants who depended on officials for assistance, the court allowed the application without costs, finding that the errors infringed the plaintiffs’ constitutional right to freedom of religion.
