There are thousands of children of citizens by birth who have not been able to enjoy their fundamental rights due to delay in enactment of the citizenship bill

• • • • • Dipendra Jha, Chief Attorney Province 2

Kathmandu, March 23

Hundreds of children of citizens by birth, who are awaiting the enactment of a new federal law  to obtain citizenship certificate, will have to wait some more time to get their citizenship as the ongoing Parliament session — likely to end tomorrow — will most probably not pass the citizenship bill.

State Affairs and Good Governance Committee of the House of Representatives, which formed a sub-panel on Thursday to forge consensus on the bill, is unlikely to finalise the issue tomorrow. Delayed enactment of the bill — which was expected to become law in the last session of Parliament — will affect children of citizens by birth and children of Nepali mothers married to foreigners, who qualify for naturalised citizenship.

Executive Director of Forum for Women, Law and Development Sabin Shrestha said delay in enactment of citizenship bill was a serious violation of the constitution that had guaranteed all citizens’ right to obtain citizenship. “The new constitution guarantees citizens the right to obtain citizenship, but some citizens who are unable to enjoy their rights due to non-enactment of new law, have no  remedial rights as they can’t get their citizenship certificates despite the court ruling in their favour,” he argued.    Delay in enactment of citizenship bill has rendered some people non-citizens, he added. Shrestha also said the citizenship bill had to be passed by March 5 as per the spirit of the constitution.

According to Shrestha, children of citizens by birth and those persons whose fathers’ status was unknown were hard hit by delayed enactment of citizenship bill as they were unable to enrol themselves in educational institutions or get jobs.

Shrestha said the home ministry had responded to Province 2 government’s letter saying the federal government would register a citizenship bill in the Parliament, but that hasn’t happened.

Chief Attorney of Province 2 Dipendra Jha said delay in enactment of citizenship bill had created problems in Province 2 which was obliged to protect the fundamental rights of citizens of the province as they could not enjoy their fundamental rights due to inability to obtain citizenship. “There are thousands of children of citizens by birth who have not been able to enjoy their fundamental rights due to delay in enactment of

citizenship bill,” Jha said. “Article 11 (3) of the constitution stipulates that

children of citizens by

birth are entitled to citizenship by descent. Yet they were not getting their citizenship due to delay in enactment of a new federal law on citizenship.”

When asked why the SAGGC was taking time to finalise its report on the citizenship bill, Chair of the panel ShashiShrestha said the panel was trying to strike a balance between the need to ensure that no bona fide citizens were deprivsed of citizenship and the need to have enough safeguard to ensure that  foreigners would not be able to exploit loopholes and get Nepali citizenship. Shrestha, said  that CDOs were refusing to issue citizenship to some people who qualified.

Rastriya Janata Party- Nepal lawmaker Laxman Lal Karna said some rights activists of Kathmandu and some political leaders were wrongly stretching the debate on gender equality to change the current provision enabling foreign women married to Nepali citizens to obtain naturalised citizenship immediately after marriage with Nepali males.