Search

On the basis of the concept of citizenship and the personalized concept of law, the article formulates a legal (not legalistic) approach to double citizenship. The right to citizenship itself is addressed as an aspect of legal capacity and as a subjective right. This enables to make a distinction between the right to citizenship as a formal permission and citizenship as an implementation of such a permission through the performance of one's obligations. As far as legal capacity is concerned, every Lithuanian, irrespective of the location of his/her residence, is entitled to become a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania. However, if he/she wishes to transform his/her right to citizenship from a capacity-level to a subjective right, he/she must become linked to the Republic of Lithuania by mutual rights and obligations, i.e., to recognize that, along with the right to create and improve the Lithuanian state, as well as to make use of the protection it provides, one also acquires an obligation to support and defend the state (valid only for legally capable persons and those receiving revenue). Such is the legal logic of citizenship. If a person seeks to acquire subjective right to protection of two states, but agrees to perform his/her duties in respect to one state only, he/she seeks the second citizenship as a privilege. However, privileges are prohibited by the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania and international legal acts as in violation of the principle of equality of all citizens. The state as an entity created by citizens exists only to the extent the citizens perform their duties to defend the state and pay taxes to support it. In a democratic state ruled by law citizenship is not taken away: one may deliberately renounce his/her citizenship or lose it by refusing to perform one's duties that derive from his/her citizenship. Only in very rare cases, when a specific person is willing and is indeed capable of simultaneously performing his/her duties to two or more states, he/she in principle may be a Citizen of „n“ states. However, practically such obligation would be very difficult or even impossible to implement. Taking this into account, laws of many countries, including also the Constitution of Lithuania, as a general rule prohibits double citizenship as a potential privilege. The Constitution only records the prohibition dictated by objective inability of a person seeking double citizenship to simultaneously abide by laws of two states and to pay taxes supporting two states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reveals the constitutional concept of the provision "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" of Article 12 of the Constitution. The said constitutional provision means that the cases provided for by the law when a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania can also be a citizen of another state at the same time may be very rare (individual), that cases of double citizenship can be very rare (exceptional), that under the Constitution it is impermissible to establish any such legal regulation whereby cases of double citizenship are a widespread phenomenon, but not very rare exceptions. The development of legislative regulation of citizenship demonstrates that after the adoption of the Constitution the legislator gradually expanded the circle of persons, who could be citizens of the Republic of Lithuania and of another state at the same time. In 2006, when there was a dispute regarding the compliance of some provisions of the Law on Citizenship with the Constitution, the said law used to establish the legal regulation whereby the absolute majority of citizens of the Republic of Lithuania, regardless of where they resided -- in Lithuania or in another state -- were allowed to be citizens of the other state as well. The Law on Citizenship used to contain also the provision whereby the right of persons of Lithuanian descent to double citizenship was not limited at all, meanwhile the law grouped the citizens of the Republic of Lithuania of other nationalities into two groups: those citizens of the Republic of Lithuania of non-Lithuanian descent who had repatriated (i.e. left to live to their ethnical homeland or settled in their ethnical homeland) were not allowed to be citizens of the Republic of Lithuania and of another state at the same time, while those citizens of the Republic of Lithuania of non-Lithuanian descent who had left to live not to their ethnical homeland or settled in not their ethnical homeland, but in some other foreign state, were allowed to be citizens of the Republic of Lithuania and of another state at the same time. Thus, the Law on Citizenship established the legal regulation whereby, on the one hand, one totally disregarded the constitutional provision that double citizenship is permissible only in individual cases and that double citizenship could not be a widespread phenomenon. On the other hand, the Law on Citizenship established the legal regulation whereby the retention of the right to citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania depended on the ethnical origin of the person and on the country (ethnical homeland or another country) to which the person moved from Lithuania. Thus, part of citizens of the Republic of Lithuania were discriminated on the basis of nationality. It was precisely because of this that the Constitutional Court ruling of 13 November 2006 recognised corresponding provisions of the Law on Citizenship to be in conflict with the Constitution. While looking for ways of how to correct the Constitution without calling a referendum on amending Article 12 of the Constitution so that cases of double citizenship would not be very rare ones, a proposal was submitted to supplement Article 32 of the Constitution with the provision "A person who acquired the citizenship of Lithuania by birth shall not lose it against his will". Paragraph 2 of Article 148 of the Constitution provides that the provisions of Article 12 of the Constitution may be altered only by referendum. It means that the Seimas, while enjoying the powers to amend other provisions of the Constitution, cannot amend those other provisions of the Constitution in a way so that the legal regulation competing with the legal regulation established in Article 12 of the Constitution would be established therein.… [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to discuss Scandinavian case of dual nationality policy in the context of the EU countries. Scandinavian case mirrors differences in policy towards dual nationality among the EU countries, which divide not only countries of the EU, but Scandinavians countries themselves into two opposite camps. In the citizenship policy of the Scandinavian countries predominates principle of jus sanguinis, which is held to be less favourable to recognition of dual nationality by itself. In spite of jus sanguinis, two Scandinavian countries (Sweden in 2001, Finland in 2003) adopted new citizenship laws, which did not change predominance of jus sanguinis, but introduced open recognition of dual nationality de jure. Denmark and Norway took the opposite direction. Denmark does not acknowledge dual citizenship even for citizens of other Scandinavian countries. Norway adopted new citizenship law in 2005, which became even more restrictive with respect to dual nationality. Lithuania in this respect is very similar to Norway. According to the recent decision of Lithuanian Constitutional Court, dual nationality should be accepted only in very exceptional cases. Relying upon Scandinavian lessons it is foreseeable that increasing immigration into Lithuania in the long-term perspective should bring question of dual nationality into political agenda anew, but it is difficult to expect unambiguous solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the phenomenon of mental duality which emerges when a person, upon entering a community of a different cultural and historic experience, seeks to be admitted to citizenship thus realizing possibilities for his activity. However, this phenomenon of duality appears even when a person does not leave his native country. The matter is that a foreign culture surging into a person's native domain can turn him into an emigrant in his own home. The phenomenon of emigration (exile) is discussed, while examining the resulting activities of distinguished members of the Lithuanian diaspora. A conclusion is made that in the present globalized and urbanized world it is impossible to avoid such a mental duality. The author suggests nurturing of the signs of uniqueness in creativity based on native cultural values. That would reduce stress due to mental duality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]