KATHMANDU: Woman rights lawyers today urged the Committee on Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of State Policies of the Constituent Assembly to incorporate a new provision for naturalised citizenship rights in the new statute to be promulgated by May 10, 2010.

Reacting to the reports submitted by the committee, advocate Sabin Shrestha charged, “The initial report of the committee proposed to curtail the rights of men in relation to provide naturalised citizenship to their foreign-origin wives with the marital relation.”

“The Committee has proposed to provide naturalised citizenship for foreign women who tie knot with Nepali men only after 15 years of marriage. This move comes at a time when Nepali women have been demanding equal

rights to citizenship to their foreign origin husbands,” he said.

“This is a regressive provision,” said Shrestha, who was speaking at a programme organised by the Forum for Women, Law and Development, in the capital.

Existing marital law allows a Nepali national to provide naturalised citizenship to his foreign wife. The draft report of the committee states that foreign women who tie knots with Nepali men have to wait at least for 15 years to get naturalised citizenship.

Shrestha, however, commended well of some other provisions which recognised right to

equality of men and women,

while acquiring citizenship from mother or father.

Also, the committee has proposed that the Nepali citizenship would be terminated if any citizen acquired the citizenship of another country, after two years.

The report also recommended that an individual who acquired their citizenship on the basis of descent, or through naturalised process (after 10 years), would be eligible to hold constitutional positions, including the chiefs of the executive, legislature and judiciary.