Clerides sends back citizenship amendment

President Glafcos Clerides has rejected and sent back to the House of Representatives a bill, unanimously passed by the House, that would have ended sex discrimination in the citizenship waiting period for foreign-born men married to Cypriot women.

The bill, passed by the House Plenum on November 19, had set a two-year period for both foreign-born women and foreign-born men with Cypriot spouses to wait before becoming eligible to apply for Cyprus citizenship.

Before the House action, foreign men married to Cypriot women had to wait five years before being entitled to apply for Cyprus citizenship – five times longer than the mere one year waiting period for foreign women married to Cypriot men.

Clerides, according to Phileftheros, bounced the bill back to the House because he wanted the waiting period raised from two years to three to guard against marriages of convenience. He also cited concern over the status of applicants who might have been in Cyprus illegally.

Akel Deputy Andreas Philippou, who had tabled the bill some 19 months ago on grounds the old law “has been totally unjust to women”, had originally wanted a one-year waiting for foreign-born spouses of either sex.

Other deputies’ concerns that only one year might lead to marriages of convenience produced a compromise of a uniform two-year waiting period for both sexes.

Philippou said at the time of the House vote that the bill represented” one more step towards sexual equality for Cypriots.” He was unavilable for comment yesterday as to how he viewed Clerides’ rejection of the measure.

Government Spokesman Christos Stylianides was yesterday, unavailable for comment on the issue, protesting a poor line on his mobile telephone, which was subsequently switched off.

Philippou had said the new legislation, if signed into law, would have affected about 3,000 foreign-born men married to Cypriot women still waiting for citizenship eligibilty under the old five-year rule. There are an estimated 8,000 mixed marriages of Cypriots and foreign-born spouses in Cyprus.

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