Expatriates can participate in local polls

The government will formulate a citizenship law allowing Bangladeshi expatriates to contest elections to local government bodies and to participate in political activities, Law Minister Anisul Huq said yesterday.

Bangladeshis abroad, however, cannot become lawmaker, president and Supreme Court judge as per the proposed citizenship act, he said while speaking as the chief guest at a roundtable discussion on the Proposed Citizenship Act 2016 organised by the Centre for Nonresident Bangladeshis at Hotel Sonargaon in the capital.

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The government will not formulate any law that will be harmful for the people of the country and the nationals living abroad. It is scrutinizing the rules and sub-rules of the proposed act that has been called into question, the minister said.

In 2005, the Law Commission led by the then chairman Justice Mustafa Kamal sent a draft of the citizenship act to the home ministry with the recommendation that the citizenship acts of 1951 and 1972 should be scrapped and be replaced by a new law, according to law ministry sources. 

The cabinet in principle approved the draft in 2011 and asked the home ministry to modify and finalise it upon consulting with relevant people.

The home ministry then prepared a draft as recommended and sent it to the law ministry for vetting in 2015. The law ministry then scrutinized the proposed law and sent it back to the home ministry.

The cabinet in 2016 asked the law ministry to further examine the proposed law.

The law ministry has made a move to amend some provisions of the proposed law, considering the logical demands of people, particularly the Bangladeshi expatriates, the sources said.

Prime Minister's International Affairs Adviser Gowher Rizvi, Supreme Court Bar Association President Yusuf Hossain Humayun, journalist Mahfuz Ullah and Legislative and Parliamentary Affairs Division Secretary Mohammad Shahidul Haque also spoke at the meeting chaired by Nonresident Bangladeshis Chairperson MS Shakil Chowdhury.