Go back to drawing board with citizenship bill, Saifuddin told

An institutional reforms advocacy group has urged Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail to bring the citizenship amendment bill back to the drawing board.

Project - Stability and Accountability for Malaysia (Projek Sama) said Saifuddin (above) should seize the window of opportunity with the deferral of the highly contentious bill to table either a green paper, a white paper or refer the bill to a Parliamentary Special Select Committee (PSSC).

Should the minister pick and execute from the aforementioned options, Projek Sama said it would demonstrate that the Madani government respects the Federal Constitution and its commitment to be inclusive when it comes to serious formulations of laws and policies.

“The minister can choose to table a green paper to enable an open-ended deliberation, a white paper to back the government’s proposal with facts and figures or refer the bill to the PSSC to further study the matter.

“For example, the Control of Tobacco Products and Smoking Bill 2022 to end tobacco consumption for the younger generation was referred to a PSSC by the then health minister Khairy Jamaluddin.

“This resulted in a better bill with cross-party consensus, though it was unfortunately watered down in 2023 under a new minister (Dr Zaliha Mustafa),” it said in a statement.

Therefore, it called upon chairs of three PSSCs – Ranau MP Jonathan Yasin (security), Selayang MP William Leong (human rights, election and institutional reform) and Puchong MP Yeo Bee Yin (women, child and community development) – to initiate an inquiry on the bill, regardless of Saifuddin’s reference.

“The terms of reference of these PSSCs allow them to examine any relevant bill under the responsibility of the Home Ministry or have consequences on the Federal Constitution, human rights and social welfare.

“If referred to a PSSC, all stakeholders can be called to present their submissions, and the public can be kept maximally informed.

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.

Saifuddin had wanted the citizenship amendments to be debated and voted on in the previous Parliament session.

However, he only managed to do the second reading of the bill before the Dewan Rakyat session ended.

While Putrajaya agreed to drop a controversial constitutional amendment, which would deny automatic citizenship to foundling babies, critics and activists say the remaining amendments are still problematic.

There was uncertainty whether the government could secure the two-thirds majority needed to pass the constitutional amendments, as there was discontent among MPs over regressive elements in the bill.

This includes children born overseas to Malaysian mothers before the amendment being excluded from automatic citizenship as the bill is not retrospective.

The debate on the bill is now expected to take place when the Dewan Rakyat reconvenes in June.

Meanwhile, Projek Sama has commended Saifuddin’s decision not to rush the vote on the bill, saying the latter has portrayed an understanding that the MPs needed more room to debate the bill.

“This reduced the ‘serious trust deficit’ against the government that the home minister incisively recognised in a podcast programme (Keluar Sekejap).” - Mkini