Tiarma Siboro and Hera Diani, Jakarta – The House of Representatives has set up a special commission to draft a revision of Law No. 62/1958 on citizenship, but few people expect a quick revision after some legislators warned of the negative implications of giving "privileges" to mixed marriage couples.
A member of the commission, Lukman Hakim Sjaifuddin from the United Development Party (PPP), promised that legislators would craft a law that respected the basic rights of the people who lived in the country. Yet, he said, the legislators could not just remove all of the articles considered unfair to expatriates married to Indonesians.
"Some of my fellow legislators are worried about the possible negative implications on politics, culture and security if we grant 'legal privileges' to expatriates," Lukman said.
"There is an idea of adopting a system that enables children who are born in a family where the mothers or fathers are foreigners to have dual citizenship, but I predict there will be a rigorous debate over the issue," Lukman told The Jakarta Post.
To try and bridge the different views among legislators, Lukman said he suggested several conditions for dual citizenship, including the principle of reciprocity.
That means that only children of mothers or fathers from those countries that offer dual citizenship to Indonesians would be eligible.
"However, incorporating such a policy into the new law will not be easy as many of my fellow legislators have questioned whether people with dual citizenship would be as loyal to the country as those with only Indonesian nationality," Lukman said.
Indonesia adopts the principle of ius sanguinis, which means that children automatically receive the nationality of their father. Other countries, including the United States, adopt the ius soli principle, which grants nationality to people based on where they were born.
The ius sanguinis principle creates problems for children of Indonesian women who marry foreigners. In the worse case scenario, children born to Indonesian women who are married to foreigners from countries that employ the ius soli principle can become stateless.
Legislator and women's activist Nursyahbani Katjasungkana said the laws on citizenship and immigration (Law No. 9/1998) discriminated against women, children and Chinese-Indonesians. She wants the government and the House to deliberate the two laws simultaneously.
"I have told the commission that dual citizenship will enable children to live in this country without any discrimination and protect them from legal abuses that they usually face for not being 'pure Indonesians'.
"I also asked the commission to consider another new policy that would help mixed marriage couples obtain permanent residence if they really wanted to stay here," she said, citing the rigid bureaucracy that mixed marriage couples must deal with each time they want to obtain a permit to live or work in the country.
The couples face similar problems in seeking permits for their children to live in Indonesia.
Lukman expects the new citizenship law will require all state officials to ease the process of obtaining permits to prevent couples from being exploited by corrupt officials.
"Well, you know, immigration procedures can be tiring, so we want to simplify them. Principally, no legal procedures should be allowed to violate people's basic rights," Lukman said.