The requirement to denounce existing citizenship must be reasonable

Many countries around the world still do not allow multiple nationalities. The requirement to renounce one’s nationality to obtain a passport from another country is still the rule rather than the exception. Indeed, it can become an insurmountable obstacle as governments cling to their citizens.

Some of conditions may be purely formal, others are made to avoid tax abuse or fleeing justice. Some of the requirements stem from international obligations under the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. Article 7 of the Convention stipulates, that (1(a)) if the law of a Contracting State permits renunciation of nationality, such renunciation shall not result in loss of nationality unless the person concerned possesses or acquires another nationality. Moreover, (2) a national of a Contracting State who seeks naturalization in a foreign country shall not lose his nationality unless he acquires or has been accorded assurance of acquiring the nationality of that foreign country.

Multiple nationality is not allowed, with exceptions, under Lithuanian Constitution of 1992 (Art. 12). The Law on Citizenship further establishes a rather fragmented rule whereby in a process of naturalization the foreigner must expresses his/her will in writing to renounce his/her existing citizenship after he is granted citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania, while descendants of Lithuanian citizens and ethnic Lithuanians must denounce their existing nationality before they can reinstate their Lithuanian one.

Rather unexpectedly the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania has interpreted in a decision of 15 January 2025 that the administrative authority failed to properly assess whether such a requirement to renounce nationality is reasonable. The applicant was refused the right to renounce his Belarusian passport without completing his compulsory military service. In this respect, the Supreme Administrative Court emphasised in particular that the applicant is a person of Lithuanian origin, and that, in the light of the Constitution and the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court, even if the legal regulation for Lithuanians to become citizens of the Republic of Lithuania is established under easier conditions (simplified procedure), it is not possible to create and require a particularly difficult exercise of the right to citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania, regardless of the individual person’s individual circumstances.

According to the assessment of the Supreme Administrative Court even in the case of reinstatement of the Lithuanian citizenship the applicant can submit the evidence of the loss of the previous nationality after his request has been granted, thus correcting the legislative omission.

The Court relied inter alia on Lithuanian constitutional doctrine under which, rather remarkably, constitutional right of every Lithuanian to settle in Lithuania means that all Lithuanians living abroad, wherever their permanent residence is, have the right to return to Lithuania – their ethnic homeland – at any time. According to the interpretation of the Constitutional Court the Constitution does not allow for a legal regulation that would cut off Lithuanians living abroad from the Lithuanian nation. Lithuanians living abroad cannot be denied the opportunity to participate, if they so wish, in the life of the Lithuanian nation. Lithuanians abroad are an integral and inseparable part of the Lithuanian nation. This is the constitutional basis for establishing by law a legal regulation in such a way that Lithuanians living in other countries have the right to become citizens of the Republic of Lithuania under different (easier) conditions than other persons seeking citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania (inter alia, that foreign Lithuanians seeking citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania should not be subject to the usual naturalization conditions).

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