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Rights group wants clause in constitutional amendment bill removed

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Lawyers for Liberty says Clause 12(1) relating to children born to Malaysian mothers abroad does not have a retrospective effect.

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Free Malaysia Today
LFL adviser N Surendran says Clause 12(1), if approved, means thousands of children who have been born to Malaysian mothers overseas will remain stateless, as they have been all this while.

PETALING JAYA:
Human rights group Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) has called on Putrajaya to remove a clause in the bill proposing constitutional amendments to citizenship law, saying it will prevent children who have been born to Malaysian mothers abroad from obtaining citizenship.

LFL adviser N Surendran said Clause 12(1) of the bill does not have a retrospective effect.

“To our shock and surprise, by Clause 12(1) of the bill, the new amendments will not affect the citizenship status of those children who were born prior to the coming into effect of the Act.

“The effect of this clause is that the thousands of existing children born to Malaysian mothers overseas will not receive the benefit of the new amendment.

“They will remain stateless as they have been all this while,” he said in a statement.

Earlier today, home minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail tabled the much anticipated proposed amendments to the Federal Constitution on citizenship laws for the first reading in the Dewan Rakyat.

The bill will accord equal rights to children born overseas to Malaysian mothers by amending Part II of the Second Schedule to the constitution to allow automatic conferment of citizenship.

According to the bill, Clause 12(1) states that the citizenship status of any individual born within or outside the Federation before the commencement date of the Act will be handled according to Part III of the Federal Constitution.

The bill previously aimed to amend both Section 1(e) of the Second Schedule, Part II, which grants citizenship to stateless persons born in Malaysia by operation of law, and Section 19(b) of the Second Schedule, Part III, relating to granting citizenship to abandoned children.

However, these proposed amendments received backlash from various quarters, including NGOs and government backbenchers, who labelled them as regressive.

Following this, Saifuddin announced last Friday that his ministry had decided not to proceed with constitutional amendments to citizenship for foundlings, stateless children, and vulnerable individuals after discussions with MPs and party representatives.

In his statement, Surendran said with Clause 12(1) in place, existing children born to Malaysian mothers overseas will still have to apply for citizenship through registration, subject to the discretion of the home minister.

“It was the failure or refusal of the home ministry to grant citizenship to them all this while that led to the long campaign to amend Section 1(b).

“Now, they will be back to square one, after having been given false hope that their citizenship woes would be resolved by constitutional amendment,” he said.

Surendran also warned that maintaining Clause 12(1) would be a betrayal of the repeated promises of government leaders, including Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, that citizenship problems would be resolved by constitutional amendments.

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