KATHMANDU, JULY 25
National Assembly members today debated the citizenship bill, with most of the lawmakers defending the bill. However, there were some who found fault with some of the provisions of the bill.
Bamdev Gautam was among those who defended the bill. He said the 1990 constitution had also provisioned granting matrimonial naturalisation to foreign women marrying Nepali men without hassle. The same provision was contained in the citizenship law, as political forces were cautious that the process of granting matrimonial naturalisation should not be complex.
"If foreign women marrying Nepali citizens are barred from obtaining Nepali citizenship for 14 years, children born to such women would become Nepali citizens, but such women would not be able to obtain Nepali citizenship," he said.
Gautam, however, said that foreign women marrying Nepali men could be required to produce evidence that they had initiated a process of renouncing citizenship of their mother countries and the bill should be revised to that extent.
Nepali Congress lawmaker Jitendra Narayan Dev said the new citizenship bill was in consonance with the constitution.
He thanked ruling coalition partners - CPN-Maoist Centre Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal and CPN (Unified Socialist) Chair Madhav Kumar Nepal - for finding fault in the old citizenship bill that the government withdrew before registering a new bill. Dev was referring to the seven-year waiting period incorporated by the State Affairs and Good Governance Committee for matrimonial naturalisation, which was not part of the original bill. This provision was inserted by members of SAGGC who belonged to the erstwhile Nepal Communist Party (NCP). The Nepali Congress and Madhes-based parties had opposed the provision.
Dev said the constitution did not allow incorporation of any waiting period for matrimonial naturalisation in the citizenship law.
CPN (Unified Socialist) lawmaker Beduram Bhusal said the bill incorporates provisions that all parties had consensus on. He, however, said that the government should try and forge consensus on the provision relating to matrimonial naturalisation.
CPN-MC lawmaker Narayan Kaji Shrestha was among the few who said that there was no need to drop the seven-year waiting period for matrimonial naturalisation. He said the government should have tried to pass the SAGGC report instead of bringing the new citizenship bill.
He said the bill should also have incorporated provisions for granting citizenship to foreign men marrying Nepali women if they wished to obtain Nepali citizenship or stay in Nepal with their Nepali spouses.
CPN (US) lawmaker Jayanati Devi Rai said SAGGC was right in proposing a seven-year waiting period for foreigners married to Nepali men before they could get Nepali citizenship.
Responding to lawmakers' queries, Home Minister Bal Krishna Khand said the government did not bring the bill to ease citizenship provisions, but to provide citizenship to eligible citizens in a hassle-free manner. He said the government would continue to forge consensus on provisions related to matrimonial naturalisation where parties had differences, but it brought the new bill as many eligible citizens were being deprived of citizenship due to non-enactment of the citizenship law.
The citizenship bill was stalled earlier mainly due to differences over matrimonial naturalisation and in the absence of new citizenship law, many eligible citizens are being deprived of enjoying their rights, including the right to employment and education, Khand said.
A version of this article appears in the print on July 26, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
