News

Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act or Fostering a Citizenship of Fear?

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Bill C-24 is an act pending in the Canadian Parliament that could bring significant amendments to Canada’s citizenship legislation. Although the reform intends to strengthen the Canadian Citizenship Act, Lorne Waldman and Audrey Macklin describe the resulting state of affairs as fostering a citizenship of fear. Others have said that the bill would create second class citizens (Patti Tamara Lenard), because if passed, it would allow the government to revoke the citizenship of naturalized Canadians should they commit certain crimes or fraud. The amendments will introduce a question in  the naturalisation process on whether the applicant intends to stay in Canada following naturalisation. In our globalised world, the proposed amendments to Canada’s citizenship legislation seem to weaken rather than strengthen Canadian citizenship.

 

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EU citizens disenfranchised in the UK

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A number of EU citizens resident in the UK complained that they found themselves unable to vote in the elections for European Parliament there, because of the complicated registration system. Even people who have been on the electoral rolls and had voted in local elections before were expected to ‘opt in’ in order to vote for MEPs in the UK, otherwise they were supposed to be voting for MEPs in their home country. Such a default rule runs against the spirit of free movement which supposes that EU citizens shall exercise their rights where they live. It is even more problematic as come countries, including the UK itself, restrict the voting rights of their non-resident citizens and the European Commission had already expressed concern about it earlier this year. 

 

Read more in the Guardian.

Read more about disenfranchisement and Commission’s action.

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Redefining German identity – President Gauck calls for a new understanding of the German “we”

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Last week German Bundespräsident Joachim Gauck hosted a ceremony of naturalization in his residence Schloss Bellevue. In his address to 22 new citizens he called for a new understanding of German identity. Germany’s head of state pointed to a need for accommodating immigrants also in a symbolic way: “There is a new German ‘we’, the union of the diverse.” At the same time, he hailed the successful integration of 16 million immigrants since the republic’s birth.  The former pastor promoted an affirmative approach to immigration as a precondition for discussing in a relaxed manner the problems of an immigration society. Pointing to a recent reform of the German ‘option model’ of citizenship, he acknowledged dual citizenship as an “expression of the lived experience of a growing number of people”.  The ceremony was at the same time a celebration of the 65th Constitutional Anniversary.

One day later in the Bundestag German-Iranian author Navid Kermani also addressed the issue of German immigration. In his Anniversary speech he made a conciliatory move by combining his lament over insufficient recognition of guest-workers’ merits in the past with a vicarious expression of immigrants’ gratitude for the German provision of freedom.

 

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Re-elected Orban calls for autonomy for the Hungarians abroad

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Upon his formal reelection as a prime Minister, Victor Orban stated that he would continue his policies of uniting the nation “beyond the borders” and claimed that “Hungarians living in the Carpathian basin are entitled to have dual citizenship, are entitled to community rights, and also autonomy.” During his previous term of office, he had already granted Hungarian citizenship to many of them and their votes contributed to his landslide victory in the last month’s elections. According to Reuters, he has pointed to the 200,000 ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine, “entitled to Hungarian citizenship and also the right to self-administration.” Ukraine, as Slovakia, does not accept that its citizens adopt a foreign nationality. Orban’s proposal is therefore bound to be controversial.

Read more details by Reuters, Euronews, and Budapest Business Journal. 

Read our earlier news on naturalisations of ethnic Hungarians abroad and on their role in the recent elections here. 

 

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Austrian Ministers propose to denaturalize Austrian nationals fighting in Syria

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By EUDO CITIZENSHIP expert Gerd Valchars

Following a report of an allegedly large number of jihadists from Austria in the Syrian civil war (an estimated 80-100 persons), the Austrian Minister of the Interior, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Integration and the Minister of Justice, all three belonging to the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP), announced plans to strip such fighters of their Austrian citizenship. As a first step, the citizenship act would have to be amended, as the current provisions (articles 32 and 33) only provide for a loss of citizenship by persons serving in the public  or military service of a foreign country. The planned amendment would extend this to “persons participating in armed conflicts in a foreign armed group” (“Personen, die sich an bewaffneten Konflikten einer ausländischen bewaffneten Gruppierung beteiligen”) if these persons are dual nationals, as statelessness would be in contradiction to international law. Nonetheless, as a second step the ministers consider extending deprivation also to persons with only Austrian citizenship. Acknowledging the potential conflict with international law they intend to “start discussions with the relevant international institutions”. There seems to be some confusion as to which these relevant international institutions could be since the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Integration mentioned “the EU-level” but neither  the UN nor the Council of Europe, which are the International Organisation that have actually adopted the relevant conventions. The Minister of the Interior explained the motivation for the plan as follows: “Austrian citizenship is of great value and must not abused by Islamists” (“Das hohe Gut der österreichischen Staatsbürgerschaft darf durch Islamisten nicht missbraucht werden”).

Until now the Austria law (Art. 32) provides the possibility to deprive a person of his or her nationality if such person enters, on his own free will, the military service of a foreign state. In these cases even statelessness is accepted as Austria declared reservations in this respect when ratifying the UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness in 1972. A second provision (Art. 33) allows for withdrawal of citizenship if the behaviour of a person employed by a foreign state seriously damages the interests or the reputation of the Austrian Republic.

Further measures in the Ministers’ „five point action plan“ consist of withdrawing protection status from refugees fighting in armed conflicts; denying minors the right to leave the EU without the consent of their parents; and creating a “de-radicalisation hotline”.

The proposed measures would need consent by the co-ruling Social Democrats.

 

Read more in Die Presse, ORF and Krone.  

Read a critical commentary regarding the populist aspect of these planned measures in Der Standard. 

Compare with the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, New York, 30 August 1961.

 

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