It has been a sad peculiarity of our laws that when our daughters marry foreigners, they are expected to go away.
Our laws don't make it easy for foreign husbands to reside in this country with their Malaysian wives; but, if a Malaysian woman leaves the country to set up family and home in her husband's country, our laws don't make it easy for her to return, either.
For, if a Malaysian woman gives birth abroad, and her husband is not a Malaysian citizen, her child has no right to Malaysian citizenship — unlike the children of Malaysian men, who are automatically conferred their father's citizenship even if their mother is not a citizen.
Legally, this puts these Malaysian women in a bind: How do they return to Malaysia when their children have no automatic right even to reside here? The same applies when a Malaysian mother lives in her foreign children's birth-country.
Not only is long-term spousal residence not guaranteed, but, should the marriage be dissolved, access to her children could be lost at the drop of a foreign judge's gavel.
So, to ensure that they have the full protection of the law, these Malaysian women reluctantly give up their citizenship to take on one that aligns with their children. And just like that, our beautiful daughters are lost.
If the law was just about punishing citizens for marrying foreigners or having children abroad, why do they not apply to Malaysian men as well? If it were about women not being equal to men, why then does our Federal Constitution say that "all persons are equal before the law and entitled to the equal protection of the law",
with a clause that specifically prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender? For too long, the application of our citizenship laws has been in isolation from the guarantee of equality and protection against discrimination that our Constitution promises. And during that time the law, as it has been applied, has told our daughters that they are not as valuable to this country as our sons are.
Even worse, it tells our daughters that their children are not cherished; unlike the children of our sons. How can a law that impacts half our population so unjustly even be allowed?
So, it was with a great sigh of relief, and an overwhelming sense of justice, that Malaysian women and all fair-minded Malaysians celebrated High Court judge Datuk Akhtar Tahir's decision on Thursday, that Article 14(1)(b) of the Constitution must be read in harmony with Article 8(2), giving Malaysian women equal rights as Malaysian men to automatically confer citizenship to their children. What a heartbreak it has been, to have had to wait so long for the law to be fairly and sensibly interpreted to breathe life into what our Constitution aspired for this nation's beloved children.
Realistically speaking, that this decision does not challenge any government policy, but instead aims to better interpret the law, is a great thing. But, that current government policies as they stand are still not fully supportive of our daughters is also a shameful thing.
The judiciary having taken this first step, Parliament and the executive should take the next — to ensure that government policies and laws give meaning to the spirit of the Constitution.