A FAMILY support group has called on the new government to amend the Federal Constitution immediately to remove current gender bias for overseas-born children.

Family Support & Welfare Selangor & Kuala Lumpur (Family Frontiers) said the change would allow grant automatic citizenship to children born overseas to Malaysian women married to foreigners.

Executive committee member Chee Yoke Ling hoped that new Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reforms) Azalina Othman Said will look into the plight of these mothers.

“We hope that Azalina can propose to the cabinet that an amendment be submitted to parliament.

“We hope that the government can expedite the process,” she told The Malaysian Insight.

Chee said the current law was discriminatory because Malaysian men married to foreign women have this right for their children to be citizens automatically, but not the other way round.

Azalina is a strong supporter of giving this same right to Malaysian mothers.

On October 5, the Dewan Rakyat rejected 17 private members’ bills on the issue.

During the sitting, Azalina said that Speaker Azhar Azizan Harun rejected the bills on grounds that provisions under part III of the Federal Constitution cannot be passed without the consent of the Conference of Rulers.

In her private bill, Azalina sought to amend article 14’s sections 1(b) and 1(c) of part II, schedule 2 of the Federal Constitution, to include the words “or mother”.

Article 14(1)(b) states every person born on or after Malaysia Day, fulfilling any of the conditions in part II of the second schedule of the Federal Constitution, are a citizen by operation of law, while section 1 b) of part II of the second schedule of Federal Constitution states every person born outside the federation, whose father is at the time of the birth of a citizen, are citizens by operation of law.

Chee said it was now time for the new government to fulfill pledges made on this issue made during the 15th general election.

She said that Family Frontiers was drafting a memorandum to be presented to Azalina, Women, Family, Community Development Minister Nancy Shukri, and Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail within this month.

“We certainly will be contacting them to ask for meetings. Azalina has been very supportive and we are very encouraged by her first official statement as minister where she highlighted this unequal citizenship law as outdated law and in need of change.”

Earlier this week, Saifuddin said the issue was on the government’s agenda and vowed to prioritise it.

Saifuddin said his ministry would look into the matter from every aspect, including the constitution, existing laws and humanity.

Chee said, according to a parliamentary reply in July, a total of 4,870 citizenship applications were received from 2013 to 2022, some 1,728 of which were rejected without reason.

Family Frontiers and six impacted mothers filed a constitutional case in 2020 seeking a court declaration that mothers have the same right as fathers to automatically declare their children Malaysian citizens.

“They were successful at the High Court, but lost when the former government appealed the decision,” Chee said.

The case is due to come before the Federal Court on December 14. – December 8, 2022.