Post
by vignette » Sat Mar 24, 2012 4:41 pm
Malaysia does not recognise dual nationality. If the authorities become aware that an adult holds a passport for another country they will deem them to have given up their Malaysian nationality and will retain their passport and refuse to issue another.
However, I am not sure whether this is quite so clear cut for children under 18, I think that the Malaysian authorities may consider that minors are not responsible for their parents decisions and would enable them to regain their Malaysian nationality if they wished to when they were adults. Maybe you could find a way to check this out back in Malaysia i.e. not involving the High Comm in London?
The Malaysian authorities are also concerned to deter their nationals from overstaying or otherwise breaching the conditions of their leave in the UK. If the children entered the UK on their British passports there will be no entry stamp in their Malaysian passports ; if they entered on their Malaysian passports then they would have been given 6 months as visitors and therefore appear to have overstayed.
If the children hold current, valid British passports they cannot be issued with a ROA certificate in their Malaysian passports as well.
I think that you could ask the authorities to cancel their current British passports and then apply for ROA to be entered in their Malaysian passports with evidence that the British passports have been cancelled; but you might want to check first that this would be acceptable.
This would enable them to retain their Malaysian passports and have evidence of valid residence in the UK but it would have implications for travel in Europe since they would need to meet the requirements for Malaysian visitors rather than UK ones.
