Lawyers for Liberty has accused Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh of painting a “false” picture about the proposed citizenship law amendments for Malaysian mothers with overseas-born children.
According to its director Zaid Malek, her comments were grossly misleading, dishonest, and completely ignored the serious concerns about the bill raised by civil society, human rights lawyers, the Bar Council, Suhakam, prominent individuals, as well as some Pakatan Harapan MPs.
“Firstly, the citizenship bill failed to be debated and passed by the Parliament in the recent session, despite all the promises made by the unity government leaders that the plight of the Malaysian mothers would be resolved.
“In fact, what happened was that the home minister announced that the bill was ready to be debated just minutes before the Parliament sitting was adjourned,” Zaid said in a statement today.
He was responding to Yeoh saying it was a positive move for the government to table the proposed citizenship law amendments in Parliament to give Malaysian mothers the equal right to confer citizenship on their overseas-born children.
In an exclusive interview with Malaysiakini, the minister lauded the Madani administration’s political will to table the bill in the august House.
On March 27, Putrajaya deferred the debate session for the citizenship amendment bill to the next parliamentary session after the Dewan Rakyat session ran out of time.
Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail had wanted the citizenship amendments to be debated and voted on in that Parliament session.
However, he only managed to do the second reading of the bill before the Dewan Rakyat session was adjourned.
‘Cruel and ridiculous’
Elaborating, Zaid said the deferment of the debate session for the bill was just a charade and a clear abuse of the Dewan Rakyat’s standing orders.
“As the government controls the business of the Dewan, they could easily have had the bill debated and passed.
“In the end, nothing was accomplished, and no relief was given to the thousands of Malaysian mothers who were desperately waiting for the law to be passed,” he said.
Zaid further claimed that thousands of stateless children born overseas to Malaysian mothers would receive no benefit from the bill, contrary to what Yeoh had claimed.
This is because, according to Clause 12(1) of the bill, only children born after the passing of the amendments will receive citizenship, he pointed out.
“Those existing thousands of children will be left in a lurch. This is cruel and ridiculous because the government claimed from the beginning that it (the constitutional amendment) is to help these children.
“As a result, the Malaysian mothers (involved) have been left hopeless and devastated by this deliberate exclusion of their children from the ambit of the bill,” said Zaid.
The lawyer then accused Yeoh and her cabinet colleagues of painting a “false and positive picture” of the citizenship bill, which allegedly did not mirror reality.
According to him, Harapan is now offering excuses and misleading remarks on the matter - contrary to its vocal stance against statelessness when it was in the opposition.
“We strongly urge the government to immediately announce that the citizenship bill will be amended to include existing children born overseas to Malaysian mothers.
“To do otherwise would be a betrayal of the hopes and aspirations of thousands of Malaysian mothers and their innocent children.”
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