Recent changes in citizenship law and policy May 2010-January 2015 Lithuania Ramutė Ruškytė

12 Pages·2015·0.44 MB·English

UPDATE: Recent changes in citizenship law and policy

May 2010-January 2015

Lithuania

Ramutė Ruškytė

The most significant event the past 5 years concerning the regulation of citizenship
was the modification of the Law on Citizenship in respect of which new wording
came into force on 1 April 2011 (with some minor exceptions).

The modified Law on Citizenship was adopted on 2 December 2010 after long
and arduous debate not only in the Parliament— the Seimas of the Republic of
Lithuania -- but also amongst the public and the academic community. These debates
began towards the end of 2006, following the judgement by the Constitutional Court
entitled “On the Compliance of the Provisions of the Legal Acts Regulating the
Citizenship with the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania”, handed down on 13
November. In its ruling, the Constitutional Court recognised that various provisions of
the original Law on Citizenship, adopted on 17 September 2002, were in conflict with
the Constitution.

The various debates over the new wording of the Law on Citizenship, which
took place in the public sphere, revealed a prevailing determination to consolidate the
law by providing for greater opportunities for persons of Lithuanian descent to
become Lithuanian citizens, and also by expanding the circle of persons who are
allowed to hold dual citizenship.

1
The adoption of such a standpoint was greatly influenced by the specificity of
Lithuanian history. Before independence was lost in 1940,1 and again in 1944-1945,
large numbers of residents emigrated from Lithuania. Enormous losses were sustained
between 1940 and 1952 when 275,6972 Lithuanian citizens were exiled to Siberia on
social, political, or religious grounds. Although some were rehabilitated before the
restoration of Lithuania's independence, and others after its restoration, nevertheless,
before the restoration of independence, a not inconsiderable number of people and
their descendants remained resident outside Lithuania, as their return to the country
was hindered by obstacles.

According to various calculations, prior to 1990, former Lithuanian citizens
living outside the borders of Lithuania, along with their descendants, represented
around a million persons. This number increased by more than half a million
emigrants between 1990 and 2011 following the restoration of Lithuania's
independence. The anthropologist V. Čiubrinskas, who has researched the identity of
emigrants, maintains that the number of people of Lithuanian descent who reside
outside the borders of Lithuania is certainly more than a million. On 1 December
2014, Lithuania had 2,923 million residents.3

The descendants of Lithuanians who reside in foreign countries (mainly in the
US and Western Europe) who left Lithuania for political reasons in 1939–1940 are
particularly active in their attempts to acquire Lithuanian citizenship and to hold dual
citizenship. Prior to 1990, support for Lithuanian independence among for these
persons or their parents, obliged Lithuanian political organisations to support this
group's aspirations to obtain Lithuanian citizenship. Individual politicians have
declared their support not only for this group of persons, who were forced to emigrate
for political reasons, but also with respect to another, smaller, group of persons, who
emigrated following the restoration of independence from 1990 to 2014 and those
who are still emigrating, although their departure is in no way related to politics.

However, this attitude, on the basis of which it is urged that cases calling for
dual citizenship should not be limited, is not based upon the Constitution of the
Republic of Lithuania and it obviously ignores the doctrine of the Constitutional
Court. In its ruling of 30 December 2003, while construing, inter alia, Paragraph 2 of
Article 12 of the Constitution, which stipulates that, with the exception of individual
cases provided for by law, no one may be a citizen of both the Republic of Lithuania
and another state at the same time, the Constitutional Court held that:

[The provision in Article 12 of the Constitution that a person may be a citizen
of the Republic of Lithuania and, at the same time, a citizen of another state
only in individual cases established by law, means that such cases established
by law may be very rare (individual), that cases of dual citizenship must be
extraordinarily rare, exceptional, and that under the Constitution, it is not
permitted to adopt any law under which cases of dual citizenship would be not
extraordinarily rare exceptions, but a widespread phenomenon.]

1 In its ruling of 8 July 2005, the Constitutional Court held that in 1940 Lithuania was occupied,
2 www.genocid.lt, date of access 2012 07 30.
3http://www.stat.gov.lt/lt/news/view?id=11318&PHPSESSID=d1d01491c8deeef8e7043d0e62f39847
2
Attempts to reconcile this Constitutional Court doctrine (regarding rare cases
of dual citizenship and the grounds for granting citizenship to persons of Lithuanian
descent) and the differing attitude prevailing in the public sphere4 towards the issue of
citizenship, were made after the Constitutional Court had pronounced its 13
November 2006 ruling. The first efforts led to the adoption of new wording in the
Law on Citizenship on 30 June 2008. The aim of the new wording was to implement
the Constitutional Court's ruling of 13 November 2006. However, the President of the
Republic of Lithuania, while taking account of the fact that certain provisions of the
law did not comply, in his opinion, with the Constitution and the Constitutional
Court's doctrine, referred it back to Parliament for reconsideration. The President also
proposed that this law be in force only until 1 January 2010, thereby ensuring that by
then an essentially new Law on Citizenship would be prepared. This proposal
received the assent of the Seimas. The Seimas adopted the law on 15 July 2008. In
Article 3 of the Law on Amending the Law on Citizenship, whereby the Seimas set
out the Law's new wording, it is provided that the revised Law on Citizenship be in
force until 1 January 2010.

As already mentioned in the report by Professor E. Kūris, it was expected that
by March 2009 the President of the Republic would submit a new draft Law on
Citizenship. Although the President submitted a new Draft Law on Citizenship
prepared by the working group formed pursuant to his decree No. 1K-1558 of 27
October 2008 on 17 February 2009, owing to prolonged debates, the Seimas failed to
adopt law by 1 January 2010. Therefore, the Seimas was compelled to change the
previously scheduled effective date of the valid Law on Citizenship. The Seimas
amended the aforementioned Article 3 and entered 1 July 2010 as its effective date.

The revised Law on Citizenship was not adopted by the set effective date
envisaged of 1 July 2010. Taking account of the fact that it did not adopt the revised
Law in the summer of 2010, on 18 June 2010 the Seimas adopted the Republic of
Lithuania Law on Amending Article 3 of the Law on Citizenship (No. XI-910),
whereby it amended Article 3 of this law and, rather than the former effective date (1
July 2010), it entered a new effective date of1 January 2011.

Eventually, on 4 November 2010, the Seimas adopted the Law on Citizenship
with its new wording. This law established a wide circle of persons entitled to dual
citizenship. For instance, Article 7 prescribed that dual citizenship may be granted to,
inter alia, persons of Lithuanian descent who left the Republic of Lithuania after 11
March 1990, i.e. after the restoration of independence, and who acquired citizenship
of a Member State of the European Union or of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation.

4 Contrary to the prevailing opinion among the public, the various surveys conducted of Lithuanian
residents do not show that dual citizenship would be approved by the majority of Lithuanian residents.
3
This law was not signed by the President.5 Thus the attempt to align the
provisions of the Law on Citizenship with the provisions of the Constitutional Court
ruling of 13 November 2006 once again proved futile—for the second time the
revised Law on Citizenship was vetoed by the President (actually, by his successor).

By Article 1 of the Decree of the President of the Republic No. 1K-529 of 18
November 2010, this law was referred to the Seimas for reconsideration, and by
Article 2 thereof the proposals to improve this law were put forward. The Presdeint's
proposals received the assent of the Seimas.

The revised Republic of Lithuania Law on Citizenship was adopted on 2
December 2010 (No. XI-1196) and came into force on 1 April 2011, with the
exception of Article 466, which came into force on 9 December 2010. Article 12 of
this law came into force on 1 January 2013.

We should also mention several peculiarities of a more general nature that
concern the new Law on Citizenship. The main principles of citizenship of the
Republic of Lithuania, which were scattered throughout different articles in the law in
its previous wording, have been consolidated in one article with its new wording, and
certain concepts have been specified in greater detail. Separate articles of the revised
law identify the institutions which consider and decide citizenship issues and define
the competence of these institutions. Separate articles also specify in detail which
documents are needed to exercise the right to citizenship on the basis of each
particular ground for acquiring citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania, as, for
instance, through naturalisation under the simplified procedure or by way of exception.
The revised law sets out detailed regulations for the consideration of applications for
reinstatement of citizenship, restoration of citizenship, etc. Under the law in its
previous wording, these particular issues used also to be regulated by sub-statutory
legal acts.

In the Law on Citizenship as presently in force, the previously valid [institute]
(legal concept) of retention of the right to citizenship of the Republic, which used to
be entrenched in Article 17 of the Law on Citizenship (wording of 15 July 2008), was
“reorganised” into two institutes: the institute of reinstatement of citizenship of the
Republic of Lithuania (Articles 9 and 38) and that of acquisition of citizenship of the
Republic of Lithuania under the simplified procedure (Articles 10 and 39). Under the
previous regulation, the institute of retention of the right to citizenship was applied to
the following two categories of persons: 1) persons who held citizenship of the
Republic of Lithuania before 15 June 1940, their children, grandchildren, and great-
grandchildren who reside in other states, and 2) persons of Lithuanian descent who
reside in other states. 7

5 Under Article 70 of the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania, the laws adopted by the Seimas
come into force after they are signed and officially promulgated by the President of the Republic,
unless the laws themselves establish a later date for their coming into force.
6 This article is related to the proposals for the Government to adopt the legal acts that are necessary for
the implementation of this law.
7 A person of Lithuanian descent is considered to be a person whose parents or grandparents or one of
whose parents or grandparents are or were Lithuanians and who considers him or herself Lithuanian
4
Under the current regulation, persons of the aforementioned first category may
have their citizenship reinstated under the same conditions as persons who, under the
previous regulation, were entitled to retain their right to citizenship, except that the
law no longer contains the previous requirement for residence in another state. The
removal of this requirement introduces preconditions for persons of this category to
reinstate their Lithuanian citizenship while also residing in Lithuania.

There are hardly any essential differences between those persons qualified to
hold dual citizenship who retained citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania under the
Law on Citizenship (wording of 15 July 2008), and those who reinstated this
citizenship under this law (wording of 2 December 2010). These persons were (are)
allowed to hold dual citizenship provided that they fall under one of the following
three categories of persons: 1) persons who were exiled from the occupied Republic
of Lithuania before 11 March 1990 and acquired citizenship of another state; 2)
persons who left (fled) the Republic of Lithuania before 11 March 1990 and acquired
citizenship of another state, or 3) descendants of the aforesaid persons up to great-
grandchildren. However, one should emphasise that, under the Law on Citizenship
(wording of 2 December 2010), the opportunity to hold dual citizenship has also been
opened up to those persons, belonging to the category who fled Lithuania before 11
March 1990 and acquired citizenship of another state, who left Lithuania even before
15 June 1940. Under the previously valid regulation (wording of 15 July 2008), the
start of the period of departure from Lithuania was related to the start of the
occupation, that is, 15 June 1940. Thus, at present, the Law on Citizenship creates
preconditions for a slight growth in the number of persons qualified to reinstate
Lithuanian citizenship and to hold dual citizenship at the same time.

As mentioned, the Constitutional Court has held that cases of dual citizenship
must be extraordinarily rare. In addition to the already-enumerated cases of dual
citizenship, the Law on Citizenship in its current wording provides for six more cases
(nine cases in total) when a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania may be a citizen of
another state at the same time. Four of these nine cases are new and were not provided
for in the Law in its previous wording (15 July 2008). One case is related to children
who acquired citizenship of Lithuania and citizenship of another state at birth and
who have not reached the age of 21. Such an exception was (is) important to families
of persons who emigrated from Lithuania during the last two decades. Another new
exception for dual citizenship is established in relation to cases where a citizen of
Lithuania has, by virtue of marriage to a citizen of another state, ipso facto acquired
citizenship of that state. Two more new cases of dual citizenship relate to the adoption
of persons before they reach the age of eighteen —a citizen of the Republic of
Lithuania may be a citizen of another state at the same time where:

– the person is under 21 years of age, provided that they were adopted by
citizen(s) of the Republic of Lithuania before reaching eighteen years of age and, as a
result of the adoption, acquired citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania pursuant to
Paragraph 1 of Article 17 of the Law on Citizenship;

and declares it by written statement. Lithuanian descent is proved by documents wherein it is indicated
that the person’s parents or grandparents or one of the parents or grandparents are or were Lithuanians,
as well as by the person’s written statement whereby he/she declares that he/she considers
himself/herself Lithuanian. Under the new regulation, the latter persons are granted citizenship of the
Republic of Lithuania under the simplified procedure.
5
– the person is under 21 years of age, provided that being a citizen of the
Republic of Lithuania, they were adopted by citizen(s) of another state before
reaching eighteen years of age and, as a result of the adoption, acquired citizenship of
that state.

One should note that the new wording of the Law on Citizenship creates
preconditions for a larger number of persons to reinstate Lithuanian citizenship, by
means of the institute of reinstatement (rather than the former institute of retention),
and for a larger circle of persons to hold dual citizenship.

Number of persons who acquired citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania
according to the bases of the acquisition of citizenship
Compiled by the author with the data published by the [Migration Department.]
Bases of the acquisition of citizenship 2010
  2011
  2012
  2013

of the Republic of Lithuania

Under the reinstatement procedure (from -
  95
  729
  870

01/04/2011)

Under the simplified procedure (from -
  6
  32
  36

01/04/2011)

Implementation of the right to citizenship 177
  -
  -

under the retention procedure (till
01/01/2011)
  -

Acquisition of citizenship through 162
  311
  183
  173

naturalisation

Under the restoration procedure
  35
  34
  32
  37

6
This data shows that, after the newly-worded law was adopted, the number of
persons who made use of the institute of the right to reinstatement of citizenship of
Lithuania and that of the right to citizenship under the simplified procedure, when
taken in conjunction, is several times larger since 2012 than the number of the persons
who exercised their right to citizenship by means of the institute of retention of
citizenship in 2010.

After the newly-worded Law on Citizenship was adopted, debates in the
public sphere subsidedr but did not cease. ‘If the legislator indeed wished to adopt a
provision to the effect that dual citizenship may be a widespread phenomenon, it
would be necessary to correspondingly amend the provisions of Article 12 of the
Constitution.’8 Certain politicians and members of Parliament called for amendment
of Article 12 of the Constitution which forms an obstacle to unlimited expansion of
the circle of persons who may hold dual citizenship.

Data from various surveys does not give rise to any reason to believe that such
an amendment to the Constitution would be approved by referendum. R. Narušienė,
Chairwoman (until mid-2012) of the Board of the Lithuanian World Community, who
resides in the USA, does not approve of the idea of the referendum on this issue: ‘A
referendum on the legitimisation of unlimited dual citizenship does not meet the
interests of the present-day Lithuanian state. The referendum is neither necessary nor
useful.’9

On 10 August 2012, the XIV Seimas of the Lithuanian World Community
adopted the Resolution “On Citizenship”, wherein it is emphasised that citizenship of
the Republic of Lithuania should be retained by all persons, as well as their
descendants, whose parent(s) or grandparent(s), or who themselves were citizens of,
Lithuania before 15 June 1940 (until the beginning of the Russian occupation),
irrespective of when they left Lithuania and acquired citizenship of another state.

Despite the foregoing, asof 14 October 2012 problems of dual citizenship were
raised in the election programmes of some liberal and newly-formed small parties. On
3 September 2012, A. Lydeka, Member of the Seimas and a representative of the
Liberal Movement in the Seimas, presented a Draft Law on Amending Article 7 of the
Law on Citizenship, whereby he proposed establishing that a citizen of another state
who left Lithuania before 11 March 1990 and acquired citizenship of another state, or
who left Lithuania when one of his parents or grandparents or he himself was a citizen
of Lithuania before 15 June 1940 and has acquired citizenship of another state, may at
the same time be a citizen of Lithuania.

8 V. Sinkevičius. Jurisprudencija. 2008 3(105) 16-26. Dviguba pilietybė: pasiūlymo papildyti
Konstitucijos 32 straipsnį analizė [Dual Citizenship: An Analysis of the Proposal to Supplement Article
32 of the Constitution].
9 R. Narušienė. Apie pilietybės įstatymą [On the Law on Citizenship]. www. Bernardinai.lt, date of
access 2012 07 30.
7
Hence, the Draft Law sought to realise the aforementioned resolution “On
Citizenship” of the XIV Seimas of the Lithuanian World Community of 10 August
2012. If such a Draft Law were adopted, the number of cases of dual citizenship
would rise considerably. Dual citizenship could be acquired inter alia by persons
indicated in the Draft Law who left Lithuania after 1990 or who will leave Lithuania
in the future.

To summarise, we may conclude that attempts to amend the Law on
Citizenship, which came into force [a short while ago,] show that persons of
Lithuanian descent residing outside Lithuania, and some Lithuanian politicians, do not
agree that there is optimal reconciliation between the cases of dual citizenship enabled
by the Constitution of Lithuania and those established in the law.

According to the available statistical data, at the beginning of 2001 the number
of stateless persons residing in Lithuania was 10,541[; in 2013 – 2015.] The state has
sought to furnish the possibility for persons to acquire citizenship:

1. Conditions for acquiring citizenship by stateless persons were eased when,
on 9 May 2013, the Lithuanian Parliament (Seimas) adopted the Law on the
Ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness,
which came into force on 25 May 2013 (XIIP-291). Since the ratification of the
Convention by Lithuania, stateless persons may acquire citizenship of the Republic of
Lithuania if they have been resident in Lithuania for the last five years, rather than ten
years as previously provided by the Law on Citizenship. Together with the Draft Law
on the Ratification of the Convention, the Government of the Republic of Lithuania
submitted to the Seimas a Draft Law Amending and Supplementing the Law on
Citizenship which stipulated that stateless persons could acquire citizenship of
Lithuania if they had resided there for the last five years. It should also be noted that
Lithuania has availed itself of the opportunity provided under Article 8(3) of the
Convention to leave a person stateless. On the basis of Article 8(3) of the Convention,
the Seimas declared by Article 2 of the aforementioned law (XIIP-291) that Lithuania
retains the right to deprive a person of their nationality on the grounds provided for in
Article 24(4) and (6) of the Law on Citizenship.

8
2. Any person applying for citizenship can now make use of the procedure
set out in a single legal act. By its resolution No. 280 of 25 September 2013 (which
came into force on 4 October 2013), the Government of the Republic of Lithuania
approved the Description of the Procedure for Drawing up Documents of Citizenship
of the Republic of Lithuania (hereinafter also referred to as the Description). From 1
May 2011 until the approval of the Description (25 September 2013), the relevant
government resolution only regulated the procedure for taking the oath of allegiance
to the Republic of Lithuania. The Description of the Procedure for Drawing up
Documents of Citizenship regulates in a clear manner the following issues: the
submission and consideration of applications to reinstate citizenship of the Republic
of Lithuania, as well as the adoption of decisions in relation to these applications; the
submission of applications to acquire citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania under
the simplified procedure and through naturalisation and applications to restore
citizenship of Lithuania, as well as the submission of documents in connection with
these questions to the Citizenship Commission; the submission and consideration of
applications to renounce citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania, as well as the
adoption of decisions in relation to these applications; the submission of notifications
of the acquisition of citizenship of another state; the consideration of documents and
adoption of decisions regarding the loss of citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania;
the submission and consideration of applications regarding children’s citizenship of
the Republic of Lithuania, as well as the adoption of decisions in relation to these
questions, and the coordination of draft decrees of the President of the Republic on
granting or restoring citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania.
From May 2010 until 1 December 2014, the main question which concerned
the public, the Parliament, and other politicians with regard to citizenship involved
efforts to expand the circle of persons who may hold dual citizenship. Public interest
was sparked as a result of reactions to particular events, ranging from sentiment that
Lithuanian citizenship should be granted to US citizens I. Tobias, as well as the belief
that well-known National Basketball Association player and Lithuanian citizen Ž.
Ilgauskas should not be deprived of Lithuanian citizenship after acquiring US
citizenship, to the proposal that Article 12 of the Constitution, which limits cases of
dual citizenship, should be amended by way of referendum.10

These discussions resulted in the drafting and/or adoption of the following
legal acts.

At the beginning of 2013 the President applied to the Constitutional Court
with a petition requesting the interpretation of the Constitutional Court’s rulings of 30
December 2003 and 13 November 2006 in relation to citizenship of the Republic of
Lithuania.
In substance, the petition requested an examination inter alia of the question
of whether, without making amendments to the Constitution, it is possible to adopt by
law a legal regulation under which citizens of Lithuania who departed to reside in
other states after restoration of independence on 11 March 1990, and acquired
citizenship of those states, could be citizens of the Republic of Lithuania and of
another state at the same time.

10 www.lrs.lt, date of access 2012 08 20.
9
In its judgement (13 March 2013), the Constitutional Court did not depart
from its previously stated constitutional interpretation. The Constitutional Court held
that, under the Constitution, an expansive interpretation of the provisions of the Law
on Citizenship relating to the possibility of being a citizen of Lithuania and another
state simultaneously was not possible, since, under such an interpretation, dual
citizenship would not constitute individual and extraordinarily rare exceptions, but
would be a widespread phenomenon. As ruled by the Constitutional Court, this means
that, without making certain amendments to the Constitution, the law may not
prescribe that citizens of Lithuania who departed to reside in other states following
restoration of Lithuanian independence on 11 March 1990 and acquired citizenship of
those states, may be citizens of Lithuania and of another state at the same time.

By decree No 1K-1662 on 6 December 2013, the President granted citizenship
of Lithuania to the aforementioned Mr. I. Tobias by way of exception pursuant to
Article 20 of the Law on Citizenship.11

At the beginning of November 2014, the President submitted certain
amendments to the relevant articles of the Law on Citizenship. In substance, the
amendments concerned the possibility of restoring citizenship of Lithuania, without
requiring the renunciation of citizenship of another state, to a former Lithuanian
citizen by reason of their outstanding merits to the Republic of Lithuania where such a
person has lost their Lithuanian citizenship as a result of acquiring citizenship of
another state. The Parliamentary deliberation procedure regarding this draft
amendment commenced on 13 November 2014.

In relation to issues concerning the extension of cases of dual citizenship in
the Law on Citizenship, which have been raised by the Lithuanian World Community
on more than one occasion, in a discussion held in Parliament in November 2014,
Vytautas Sinkevičius, a former Constitutional Court judge, referred to amendments of
Article 12 of the Constitution by way of referendum as the sole possible means of
resolving these questions. This idea was soon publicly approved by the President, the
Prime Minister, and the Speaker of the Seimas. However, it was not supported by the
President of the Lithuanian World Community. Previously, an amendment to Article
12 of the Constitution by referendum had been proposed by Artūras Paulauskas, the
then Speaker of the Seimas, but the idea failed to find favour. It may be assumed that
this was due to the fact that Lithuanian citizens living abroad had not supported (nor
do they support) the proposed means to legitimise dual citizenship, since opinion
polling data for Lithuanian residents offers no confidence that such a proposed
referendum will take place and lead to a favourable outcome for the issue of dual
citizenship.

10