2021 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 3(2) affected has little real attachment to the country of any other nationality that he possesses and is unlikely to be able to return there. 81 His Lordship’s implied reasoning in relation to a ‘real attachment’ is illuminative. P was born in Vietnam and lived there for several years as a child. Despite this, the strength of his Vietnamese link (and thus to Vietnamese citizenship) was deemed impliedly to be weaker than that of his link to the UK and British citizenship. This assessment resonates with the logic of the real and effective/predominant nationality concept from international law. It further accepts that the locus of an individual’s existence can shift to other polities over time. We see again that, per Nottebohm, citizenship is construed in the light of a ‘social fact of attachment’. 82 Pham suggests that the mere fact that a person is born to a non-national mother should not necessarily be equated to the finding that they are a citizen of another country. Echoing Lord Mance’s implied reasoning, our modified s 1(e) test thus includes an assessment of the strength of an individual’s links to Malaysia coupled with their weak/non-existent links to any other state. It is also worth noting that Pham has been cited by the Malaysian Court of Appeal in Madhuvita, albeit being distinguished from the facts of the case in that appeal. 83 The immediate hurdle to transplantation into Malaysian law here is that while it does deal with (purported) dual nationality at domestic law, Pham is concerned with citizenship revocation. Can it be applied to citizenship conferral? On the one hand, the substantive outcome in both cases is similar. Just as revoking P’s citizenship could have rendered him effectively stateless, failing to confer citizenship upon a person with a social fact of attachment to Malaysia may also render them effectively (if not formally) stateless. The result is therefore the same. However, these are also two different matters entirely. With revocation, the court is reviewing a positive act by the government to deprive someone of their citizenship. With conferral, however, there has been no such positive act — instead, the court is being asked to compel the government to recognise someone as a citizen. Directly transplanting Pham into the latter context is thus contextually problematic. C Citizenship by Naturalisation A third source of the principle can be found in art 19(1) of the Constitution itself, which provides for the acquisition of Malaysian citizenship by naturalisation for persons aged 21 or above. This requires that applicants apply to the Government for citizenship and satisfy certain criteria, including that they have (i) resided in the country for at least 10 years in the 12 years preceding the date of application, including the 12 months immediately preceding that date; 84 and (ii) have an adequate knowledge of the Malay language. 85 The very existence of naturalisation as a process for acquiring citizenship is a tacit acknowledgement that a person may develop social links over time to a polity in which they reside. In this context, the strength of these ties is assessed through 81 82 83 84 85 Pham (n 78) [98] (emphasis added). Nottebohm (n 1) 23. Madhuvita (n 43). See also Ngiam Geok Mooi v Pacific World Destination East [2016] 2 MLJ 741. Federal Constitution of Malaysia (n 3), art 19(3). ibid art 19(1)(c). 326