KUALA LUMPUR: The Home Ministry will proceed to table the amendments to Section 1(a) and Section 2(3) of the citizenship law today despite criticism from various quarters.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said the non-governmental organisations who had criticised the amendments should find a middle ground with the government to resolve citizenship issues.
"We wanted to table eight amendments and now we will proceed with seven after dropping one.
"I feel like the same spirit should be held by the NGOs where we try to find a middle ground.
"The government doesn't need to meet all of their demands. What's important is that all of us want to solve citizenship issues," he said at a press conference after the 217th National Day Celebration.
This comes after the Malaysian Citizenship Rights Alliance (MCRA) yesterday called for the government to drop or at least delay the tabling of amendments to Section 1(a) and Section 2(3) until data and evidence from the field and detailed studies are collected.
She said Sections 1(e) and 19B had been removed from the government's amendment proposal, but both needed to be read together with other amended provisions.
Suriani said Section 19B must be read together with Section 1(a), while Section 1(e) needed to be read with Section 2(3).
This is because Section 1(a) aims to grant citizenship rights to permanent resident (PR) children while Section 19B assumes that the mother of a stranded child is a PR.
She said removing PR from Section 1(a) would jeopardise the right to citizenship for foundlings and intergenerational stateless children.
Saifuddin called for NGOs to give some space to the government to resolve all citizenship issues.
"Your opinion might be true but it won't always be true so please give some space to the government.
"In this case, there should be a give-and-take situation and we try to find a middle ground," he added.
Last week, the government dropped two proposed amendments to the constitution on the citizenship of foundlings.
The two proposed amendments that will be dropped are 19B Part III of the Second Schedule and Section 1(e) Part I.