KATHMANDU, JULY 5
The government today decided to withdraw the Citizenship Act (Amendment) Bill from the Parliament. It will register a new citizenship bill and seek its passage through a fasttrack process.
The government had registered the citizenship bill in the House of Representatives on 7 August 2018, but the bill remained in limbo due to parties' differences over a provision in the bill that required foreign women marrying Nepalis to wait for seven years for obtaining matrimonial naturalisation.
At present, a foreign woman marrying a Nepali citizen can obtain matrimonial naturalisation immediately after she takes initiative to renounce citizenship of her mother country.
Minister of Law, Justice, and Parliamentary Affairs Govinda Bandi told THT that the government would withdraw the existing bill and register a new citizenship bill, dropping provisions where members of the State Affairs and Good Governance Committee of the House of Representatives had divergent views. Bandi said the government would bring the new bill with the contents that could win support of opposition parties as well.
Another Cabinet minister said the government would submit its proposal in the HoR tomorrow seeking withdrawal of the citizenship bill.
Assistant Spokesperson for the Parliament Secretariat Dasharath Dhamala said the bill was now the property of the HoR and the government could withdraw it only with the support of the majority members of the House. Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota will have to put the government's proposal seeking withdrawal of the citizenship bill to vote.
Since the ruling coalition commands majority in the House, it could easily secure the endorsement of the proposal in the House.
Minister of Forest and Environment Pradip Yadav said the government would seek to pass the new citizenship bill through the fast-track process.
Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal Chair Upendra Yadav said all coalition partners were one on withdrawing the citizenship bill and registering a new bill. "The new bill would ensure that children of Nepali citizens would get citizenship by birth. This will resolve problems faced by children of citizens by birth and naturlised citizens," Upendra Yadav said.
The Sher Bahadur Deuba government decided to withdraw the bill mainly because communist parties in the ruling alliance -- the CPN-Maoist Centre and the CPN (Unified Socialist) - had in the past favoured a seven-year waiting period for foreign women before marrying Nepali citizens to obtain matrimonial naturlasiation.
The State Affairs and Good Governance Committee of the HoR, which held clause-wise discussion on the bill, inserted the seven-year waiting period provision in the bill. It did not exist in the original bill. The HoR panel inserted the provision with majority backing. It was supported by members of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP), but was opposed by members of the Madhes-based parties and the Nepali Congress.
Lakhs of children of Nepali citizens by birth, who are entitled to obtain citizenship by descent, have not been able to obtain their citizenship due to non-enactment of the new federal citizenship bill. The citizenship bill was supposed to be passed much earlier to enforce Article 11 (3) of the constitution that says that children of citizens by birth shall obtain their citizenship by descent.
The bill, however, could not be passed due to divergent views of the parties in the House.
In the absence of citizenship, children of citizens by birth suffer statelessness, can't open a bank account, buy a SIM card, or obtain a driving licence.
A version of this article appears in the print on July 6, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
