Halt Regressive Citizenship Amendments Govt Urged

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The government was urged to stop all “regressive amendments” to the Constitution on the citizenship of children born to Malaysian mothers abroad.
In a statement today, a group of civil society organisations said Putrajaya should not rush through the proposed amendments without consulting all stakeholders in a transparent manner.
“The proposed regressive amendments will further remove existing protections and rights as enshrined in the Federal Constitution to prevent statelessness among Malaysians.
“Instead, the government seeks to enhance discrimination against innocent children by denying citizenship to children born out of wedlock, foundling or abandoned children, and adopted stateless children,” they added.
The statement was signed by 14 organisations including the Association of Women Lawyers, Family Frontiers, Voice of Children, and Yayasan Chow Kit.
The statement came after the cabinet reportedly approved eight proposed amendments to the Federal Constitution pertaining to the nationality of children born outside Malaysia by Malaysian mothers married to foreign nationals.
The matter is set to be brought to the Conference of Rulers, which will take place from Oct 24-26.
On Oct 1, Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail announced the government completed the draft amendment to Part III of the Federal Constitution regarding citizenship.
He was also quoted by the New Straits Times saying, “the granting of Malaysian citizenship to non-citizen individuals is the exclusive right of the government, which is not offered and given arbitrarily”.
‘Proceed with progressive amendment’
In response, the organisations today dismissed Saifuddin’s claims, saying the government’s responsibility and duty is the granting and preservation of citizenship.
Therefore, they demanded that the terms and ambit of the proposed amendments to Part III of the Federal Constitution be made available to all stakeholders and impacted Malaysian families.
Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail“Every Malaysian and every person entitled to citizenship under the Constitution is entitled to engage and be heard when their rights to citizenship are at risk of being usurped.
“We urge the government to proceed only with a sole progressive amendment enabling Malaysian mothers to confer citizenship to their children by operation of law,” they asserted.
Expressing disappointment, the organisations condemned the other amendments including removing existing citizenship rights for abandoned and stateless children and individuals in Malaysia, the creation of a new class of statelessness among children of stateless permanent residents, and putting foreign spouses married to Malaysian men at risk of statelessness if their marriage dissolves two years upon acquiring Malaysian citizenship.
They also criticised the federal government for not sticking to its election manifesto to ensure automatic citizenship for adopted children.
Cause of statelessness
While commending the government’s effort to address the backlog of citizenship applications, the groups stressed finding a solution to the pressing issue and for Putrajaya to address the cause of statelessness.
“In particular, the minister (Saifuddin) needs to answer the question of how many of these applications for citizenship were necessitated by the Home Ministry’s denial of automatic citizenship, that is, constitutionally provided citizenship by operation of law.
“Therefore, what is needed as a first step to resolving the issue of statelessness is not to create more statelessness but to address the causes one by one.”
Previously, Saifuddin was reported as saying that the government vetted 9,539 citizenship applications as of September this year. - Mkini

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