13 Comparative International Jurisprudence on Citizenship by Birth 6. Court declares Botswana law that denied women the right to confer citizenship to their children unconstitutional Attorney General v Dow 1994 (6) BCLR 1 Court of Appeal (Botswana) Amissah, Aguda, Bizos, Schreiner and Puckrin, JJ A July 3, 1992 The case addressed the discriminatory nature of the Botswana Citizenship Act. The case declared a provision of the law (section 4 and 5 of the Botswana Citizenship Act 1984) that provided that unless a child was born out of wedlock to a mother who was a citizen of Botswana, that child could not be a citizen by birth or descent in Botswana if the father was not a citizen of Botswana to be unconstitutional (rendered the provision inoperable, rendered it null and void) Summary of facts The respondent, Ms. Unity Dow, brought a case to the High Court of Botswana asserting that sections 4 and 5 of the Citizenship Act violated her right to equal protection of the law and protection from discrimination on the basis of sex because the sections of the Citizenship Act treated children differently depending on whether they were born to citizen mothers or to citizen fathers. The respondent had one child with an American man prior to their marriage and two children after. Botswana’s citizenship requirements allowed only children born outside of marriage to inherit their mother’s citizenship, so the respondent’s first child was a citizen of Botswana while the two born during her marriage were not. The applicant alleged that the legislation discriminated against men from other countries(foreigners) married to Botswana women The trial court found that the of section 4 of the as compared to women from other countries (foreigners) married to provisions Citizenship Act 1984 were Botswana men. The trial court found that the provisions of section 4 of unfair and it had the effect of the Citizenship Act 1984 were unfair and it had the effect of punishing a punishing a female citizen for marrying a non-citizen male. female citizen for marrying a non-citizen male. The respondents’ submissions The respondents’ argued that the applicants had sufficiently demonstrated that the said provisions were discriminatory. They sought and successfully got the matter dismissed. The appeal On appeal, the appellant stated that the applicant had not sufficiently shown that any of the provisions of section 3 to 16 of the Constitution had been violated by the provisions of sections 4 and 5 of the Citizenship Act. Among the appellant’s arguments was that section 15 of the Constitution did not list sex as a ground for unlawful treatment and that the CITIZENSHIP AND NATIONALITY RIGHTS CASE DIGEST