Today is Budget day and all eyes will focus on it, but it should not deny due recognition to Home Minister, Dato Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail for successfully manouvering this decades-long and contentious issue of citizenship to do the amendment to the act.
Saifuddin is Anwar's main man and Secretary General of PKR. And, PKR was formerly a bitter rival of BN, but credit where it is due.
It is a long overdue amendment to a long-standing gender inequality issue and grave injustice towards Malaysian women. Their off-springs were denied citizenship for the simple reason they fell in love and had foreign husbands.
Since it was difficult for the foreign husband of Malaysian wives to gain employment in Malaysia, they ended up being uprooted abroad. Its common to encounter Malaysians living abroad and contemporaries stuck in this predicament with family ended up in limbo from being denied access to employment, health services and education.
The citizenship problem also contributed to the Malaysian brain drain. Once abroad it is not easy to bring them back. The reason the Talent Corp initiative once led by MOF Sec-Gen ended up as a failure.
The constraint to greater gender inequality still remain and the group Family Frontier wanted the amendment to be restrospective. But thats too much to ask. At least, Saifuddin had the political will kick start by moving ahead and pursue this low hanging fruit.
The citizenship amendment was well balanced and fair with women ended up as the big winner. It got approved in Parliament with more than the two third majority required; 206 in support, one oppose, 14 absent and one suspended.
It is a big fish that got away for the previous governments, but the perception risk is beyond conservative parties like Bersatu, PAS and former UMNO could handle. That is how the turnout in the precarious toss of the ideological dice.
Amendments
An extract from Malay Mail Online report summarised the ammendment as follows:
Following the amendments today, children born abroad to Malaysian women with foreign spouses would now qualify for automatic citizenship, as was already the case for children of Malaysian men.
This amendment comes on the heels of a string of court cases brought by the Family Frontiers Organisation, Suriani Kempe, and six other women, against the Malaysian government in 2021.
Key changes to Malaysia's citizenship laws in Federal Constitution
*The Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2024 was passed by the Dewan Rakyat on Oct 17, 2024, and will have to be passed by the Dewan Negara, and receive royal assent and be gazetted to take legal effect.
Another amendment to Article 15A will now bring the age limit for citizenship applications down from 21 years’ old to 18, to be consistent with the lowered voting age as well as the definition of a minor in the Child Act 2001.
Under Section 1(b) of the Bill, parents must now register their overseas born children within a year of the child’s birth. Previously, this was not the case.
As part of what is deemed to be a “control mechanism”, the Bill now stipulates that children born abroad will be considered for citizenship according to the appropriate generation limit.
Children of permanent resident (PR) parents, meanwhile, will be granted citizenship according to the original citizenship of the parents.
Previously, children born to parents who are Malaysian PRs, automatically qualified for Malaysian citizenship by operation of law.
Foreign women who became Malaysians through marriage, meanwhile, would have their status revoked, if their marriage were to be dissolved within two years of them gaining citizenship.
The limit was previously two years from the date of marriage. Additionally, these women would be required to have adequate Malay language knowledge, as part of her application for citizenship.
The Bill will now contain a new section — Section 3 which will be listed into Part II of the Second Schedule — to require anyone under the age of 18 who had acquired Malaysian citizenship by operation of law — due to Sections 1(b) or 1(c) where they were born abroad and have at least one Malaysian parent — to take an oath (to be known as the “Oath of Renunciation, Loyalty and Allegiance” under another new amendment in the First Schedule) when they turn 18.
The Bill also proposes to add in a new clause to Article 18, by introducing Article 18(1A), where a person under the age of 18 who is a Malaysian citizen by registration is required to take the oath in the First Schedule upon turning 18. Failure to do so within 48 months of turning 18 resulting in this person ceasing to be a Malaysian citizen.
Following the amendments, any newborn child found abandoned without protection in any place shall be presumed, until the contrary is proved, to have been born in that place and the mother to be a citizen.
To achieve this significant feat is an arduous journey in winning the agreement and compromises of the various interest groups, religious groups, various ethnicity, Sabah and Sarawak, and often than not, these interest groups can be in conflict with the interest of the other groups.
The biggest obstacle was to get the consent of the royal council since historically, it is a precedent and provided under the constitution that citizenship require the cognisance of the sovereign.
"Foreigner", automatic citizenship
There will be room for improvement after this significant milestone to finetune the interest of Sabah and Sarawak, in which one complain was over the removal of the automatic citizenship for children of permanent PR.
So happen this was one of the grouses of Dr Mahathir against Pak Lah for launching the then South Johor Economic Region (SJER or now called Iskandar Region).
While Jeffrey Kitingan and Sabahans are against children of illegally deemed Projek IC Biru holders to remain as citizen, yet Syed Saddiq insist children of stateless permanent residence be awarded automatic citizenship.
Is he planning to run for office in West Coast of Sabah?
While, Eric Paulsen and Lawyer for Liberty were in their typical hair splitting argument to seek the utopian perfection for a more definitive interpretation of "foreigners" mode to call for the rejection of the amendment.
They should be reminded that Rome is not built in a day.
And Eric should not seek refuge behind the Orang Asli and insulting and racially intended term of Orang Asal. He is neither nor. Perhaps slant-eyed Scandinavian.
He should pay homage to his liberal masters in the west for an update on the rise of right wing politics against immigration and refugees.
Same argument from legal activists which were former PKR politicians and supporters. Wake-up to realpolitik. One can't have the cake and eat it too. Go join PN.
Leadership is prioritising. Saifuddin has prioritised well.
He can now move on to other more important problems such as the Rohingya, border anf entry point leakages, drug abuse and rising crime including kidnapping of children for organs and prostitution.
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