'Medieval thinking': Nazri urges govt to withdraw citizenship ruling appeal
PARLIAMENT | Mohamed Nazri Aziz (BN-Padang Rengas) has urged Putrajaya not to appeal the High Court ruling that struck out the discriminatory treatment of Malaysian mothers with overseas-born children.
He said the constitutional provision, which only grants automatic citizenship to overseas-born children if the father is Malaysian but not if the mother is Malaysian, is clearly a form of gender discrimination and is “medieval thinking”...
PARLIAMENT | Mohamed Nazri Aziz (BN-Padang Rengas) has urged Putrajaya not to appeal the High Court ruling that struck out the discriminatory treatment of Malaysian mothers with overseas-born children.
He said the constitutional provision, which only grants automatic citizenship to overseas-born children if the father is Malaysian but not if the mother is Malaysian, is clearly a form of gender discrimination and is “medieval thinking”.
“This is medieval thinking and it should not exist in the year 2021. So I ask the government, just withdraw (your appeal). No point, needless.
“I look at other countries, if (for example) a Malaysian was born in the US, (the US) will track them down once they turn 18 years old because they want to claim their income tax.
“That is how we should be thinking. We need more (people),” Nazri (above) said in a speech in the Dewan Rakyat today.
Nazri said that since Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob had come up with the ‘Malaysian Family’ concept, the government should take on a more caring approach.
“But from the very beginning, we have rejected a genuine person who wants to be a Malaysian without giving them the right to choose. I think that is not fair.
“We should not be reducing our family members, but increasing the number,” he said.
'Government has no excuses'
Stressing that he absolutely does not agree with the appeal, Nazri urged the government to think about the women in Malaysia as well as the innocent children.
The children, he said, are born innocent and have no choice in where they are born.
He also refuted the explanation by the Home Ministry for the appeal, which was that giving Malaysian women the right to bestow their citizenship to their children born overseas could threaten Malaysia’s security and sovereignty because they could be granted dual citizenship.
“As far as I know, when a baby (sic) reaches 18 years old, they can make a decision on whether they want to be a citizen of the country they were born in or to follow the citizenship of their parents.
“The right to choose their citizenship is something an individual is accorded once they turn 18 years old, so actually, the government has no excuses,” he said.
The Kuala Lumpur High Court had ruled on Sept 9 that Malaysian mothers and fathers with foreign spouses should be accorded the same benefit of their overseas-born children being granted automatic citizenship.
However, the government had made a filing in the Court of Appeals to quash that ruling, a move that has seen criticism from both sides of the political divide.
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