Revisit draft citizenship law

Organised by Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU), a workshop for the journalists was held in The Daily Star Centre on 19 November 2016 to discuss about the proposed citizenship law which is under consideration of the Bangladesh government to enact very soon. The executive director of RMMRU Professor C R Abrar chaired the workshop, while Dr. Jamed Gomez, the pro-vice chancellor of Canadian University of Bangladesh and Barrister Rashna Imam presented two papers respectively on the concept of nationality vis-a-vis citizenship rights, and the draft citizenship law under international human rights law. Highlighting his Singaporean experiences, Dr. Gomez commented that citizenship law is basically used as a political tool to suppress State's ethnic population on different pretending reasons and ideally the positive aspect of citizenship law is that it can also be used as a policy instrument to keep pace with the mode and flow of national development. With the emergence of growing radicalisation and Islamophobia around the world, the Internal Security Law in Singapore is increasingly used by the government to revoke anyone's Singaporean nationality. According to him, Singaporean court has very limited authority to invalidate any governmental action if taken as regards the revocation of a person's citizenship. 

Drawing references from the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1951 Refugee Convention and the Bangladesh Constitution, Barrister Rashna Imam critically evaluated the proposed citizenship law. She questioned the reasonableness of this law. She commented that the government of Bangladesh has no satisfactory reason to enact such an important law without sufficient public consultation, as Bangladesh does not have the problem of influx of foreigners in recent times unlike Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. She particularly emphasised that the draft law has failed to consider the vulnerable condition of the foundlings and/or children born out of non-Bangladeshi parents and of the woman married to a non-Bangladeshi man when the interest of these groups come into conflict with State's citizenship law. Being a member party of many international human rights law, as Barrister Imam believed, Bangladesh has an obligation to guarantee citizen rights and protect people from becoming stateless. 

In his concluding speech, Professor C R Abrar said that the government must ensure that the proposed citizenship law would create a mutual relationship between the State and its citizens, by which the citizens would have a tangible sense of belongingness to the State. In this regard as the law has already been approved by the cabinet, according to Professor Abrar, more public assessments of the draft law are yet to take place before the law gets passed in the parliament. Since one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS) is to ensure 'legal identity for all' by 2030, Bangladesh cannot deny its international responsibility towards the protection of the stateless population and citizens.  

by Law Desk.