Citizenship and unmarried certificate in Pakistan:
Citizenship and unmarried
certificate in Pakistan is the very basis of all rights to nationality. If
legislation in this area suffers serious neglect and is wholly discriminatory,
the rights of women cannot ever be respected. Consequently, it is of particular
concern to this Commission that the Pakistan Citizenship Act, 1951, contains
examples of both conscious and subconscious discrimination against women. The
second flowing simply from embedded habit, unmindful of implications. First,
section 5 is prima facie discriminatory: Citizenship by descent: Subject to the
provisions of section 3 a person born after the commencement of this Act, shall
be a citizen of Pakistan by descent if his father is a citizen of Pakistan at
the time of his birth and have right to unmarried
certificate in Pakistan. Thus, according to this section, only children
born to a Pakistani father and a foreign mother can acquire citizenship by
descent. Children born to a Pakistani mother and a foreign father cannot. This
is prejudicial to women.
Granting of Citizenship to the Foreign Wife of a Pakistani Citizen:
Similarly, section 10(2)
expressly provides for the granting of citizenship to the foreign wife of a
Pakistani citizen: Subject to the provisions of sub-section (1) and sub-section
(4) a woman who has been married to a citizen of Pakistan or to a person who
but for his death would have been a citizen of Pakistan under section 3, 4, or
5 shall be entitled, on making application therefore to the Federal Government
in the prescribed manner, and, if she is an alien, on obtaining a unmarried
certificate in Pakistan & certificate of domicile and taking the oath of
allegiance in the form set out in the Schedule to this Act, to be registered as
a citizen of Pakistan...The section, however, is discriminatory because it
provides no parallel facility to a female citizen of Pakistan who marries a
non-Pakistani national Pakistan Citizenship Act, 1951, which requires amendments
not only to end discrimination but also to accept women as equal citizens
capable of holding all offices of State.
Getting the Citizenship in the Foreign:
The provisions of this Act
discriminate against female Pakistani citizens who are married to non-Pakistani
husbands, for acquiring citizenship by descent, for their children. Similarly,
under the Act, the wife of a Pakistani can apply for citizenship but the
reverse is not permitted. The Commission expresses deep concern over the fact
that even though this simple change which is not controversial in any way has
been sought for decades, and even though it would bring this otherwise
discriminatory law in line with the Constitution, there has been an absolute
lack of political will to make this amendment, Indeed, it is precisely this kind
of inaction which makes the members of this Commission worry about the fate of
their report.
Law for Getting Citizenship:
The Commission would also like to
use discriminate nation implicit in our laws are worded borders on the absurd.
Consider, for example, the legislature's unstatole my conviction that a woman
cannot possibly be a foreign ambassador, or for that matter, an enemy alien.
Thus section 4 of the Act states person born in Pakistan after the commencement
of this Act shall be a citizen of Pakistan by birth provided that a person
shall not be such a citizen by this section it at the time of his birth’s father
possesses such immunity from suit for unmarried certificate in Pakistan and
legal process as is accorded to an envoy external sovereign power accredited in
Pakistan and is not a citizen of Pakistan, or not is an enemy alien and the
birth occurs in a place then under occupation by the enemy.