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Australia abandons bill to allow minister to revoke citizenship

Xinhua, June 23, 2015 Adjust font size:

Australia's immigration minister will not be granted the power to revoke foreign fighters of their citizenship after Foreign Minister Julie Bishop revealed on Tuesday the federal government will not go ahead with planned legislation.

The original plan, developed in the context of dual nationals fighting for Islamic State, was based on ministerial suspicion rather than judicial conviction and would have been unconstitutional, according to lawyers.

Bishop said, ahead of presenting the new proposal to the governing Coalition party room on Tuesday, the new legislation would instead bolster part of the Citizenship Act.

Since 1949, the Act has stated an Australian citizen serving in the armed forces of a country at war with Australia shall "cease to be an Australian citizen."

Despite being involved in a number of armed conflicts since 1949, Australia has not declared war against another country, leaving that portion of the Act unable to be used.

It is expected the Act would be updated to include entities and quasi-states that Australia designates as terrorist organisations.

"We will bring it into the contemporary circumstances of people taking up with terrorist organisations that have effectively declared war on Australia and Australians," Bishop said.

"I'm confident that the Government has addressed the concerns that were raised in the last couple of weeks. We've considered a number of options and I believe we've come up with an appropriate draft piece of legislation."

Bishop said the revocation would become a bureaucratic decision, not a ministerial one. She said the government had received advice the bill was constitutional. A previous proposal to strip all Australians fighting for terrorist organisations of their citizenship, including those holding no other citizenship, caused a split in the federal cabinet, as ministers objected that it was illegal to leave those stateless.

The Opposition warned on Sunday that Prime Minister Tony Abbott would look "silly" if parliament passed laws on citizenship, only for the High Court to tear them down. Endi