PETALING JAYA: The constitutional amendments to Malaysia's citizenship laws took a progressive step towards Malaysian women, but did so at the expense of the rights of other marginalised groups, says the Malaysian Citizenship Rights Alliance (MCRA).
"After 67 years, one facet of gender inequality has been corrected. Malaysian mothers with children born overseas will now have the equal right to automatically confer citizenship to their children, just like Malaysian men. However, this progress has come at a high price. The amendments also strip citizenship rights from children born in Malaysia to permanent residents."
The MCRA said this risked the creation of new generations of stateless persons including among Orang Asal/Asli communities, children born out of wedlock to Malaysian fathers and adopted children in Malaysia.
"The debates in Parliament over the past two days have clearly exposed the lack of full consultation with all stakeholders.
"We support the call of YB Tuaran (Tuaran MP Datuk Seri Wilfred Madius Tangau) to make it mandatory that every Bill to amend the Federal Constitution must first be referred to a Parliamentary Special Select Committee (PSSC) established specifically for this purpose to ensure full and proper consultation, with each word and section of the amendment Bill being considered and debated.
"The haphazard amendments pushed through by applying the party whips diminishes the primacy of the Federal Constitution and disregards the sanctity of separation of powers and parliamentary independence." the group said in a statement on Thursday (Oct 17).
The MRCA said the debates also revealed the lack of knowledge and poor understanding by some lawmakers of the thousands of stateless children who are deprived of access to education, healthcare and other entitlements meant for citizens.
The group also called on the Home Ministry to be held accountable for the strict compliance and implementation of the required conditions or standard operation procedures (SOP) including reasons for the rejection of citizenship applications.
The MRCA said that Parliament should also continue to have oversight of the SOPs which must include clear pathways to citizenship for children of permanent residents through the PSSC.
Meanwhile, the Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda) also expressed its disappointment and concerns over the regressive amendments that would impact permanent residents and their children but welcomed the amendment which gave equal privileges as that accorded to men to Malaysian mothers with overseas-born children
"The government has also failed to give clear feedback as to why it had lowered the age limit for citizenship application to 18 from 21 when such age limit in developed countries was either age 21 or 22." the party said.
