MalayMail-Jan 23
The Malaysian government’s plans to bring “regressive” amendments to the country’s citizenship laws to Parliament means locally-born children would have their existing rights to automatically be citizens taken away, and will instead result in “Little Napoleons” having the power to decide if they should be registered as Malaysians, a lawyer has cautioned. Sharmila Sekaran, who also chairs the child rights advocacy group Voice of the Children, said the planned regressive amendments to the Federal Constitution include a proposed move to change “citizenship by operation of law” to “citizenship by registration” for certain categories. In other words, instead of being automatically eligible under the law to be a Malaysian when a child is born here and fulfils the citizenship conditions, the government will be the one deciding if the child should be registered as a Malaysian citizen. While the Federal Constitution puts the power in the hands of the home minister, Sharmila claims that the reality is that ministers follow the bidding of civil servants. Sharmila was explaining the government’s plans to tack on regressive citizenship amendments and to bundle them together in one single package with a planned progressive constitutional amendment to enable Malaysian mothers to pass on their citizenship to their overseas-born children (just like Malaysian fathers are currently able to do). Sharmila said the regressive amendments would make it even harder for stateless children to be recognized as citizens. Read more at: https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2024/01/23/malaysias-regressive-citizenship-amendments-risk-giving-little-napoleons-power-to-decide-who-gets-to-be-a-malaysian-lawyer-says/113926
