The Interior Ministry has withdrawn a proposal for an amendment to the State Citizenship Act under which Slovaks who received Czech citizenship would not automatically forfeit their Slovak citizenship, said Ľubomíra Miklovičová from the press department at the ministry, as reported by the TASR newswire.
“It is unacceptable to recognise a second state citizenship without any form of residence in the other state,” said Interior Minister Daniel Lipšic, as quoted by TASR, adding that the current amendment violates this principle.
Lipšic said that the exception to the law appeared in the draft after a mistake by employees of the ministry.
Miklovičová explained that the amendment was not focused on solving the situation of people who lose the citizenship according to current legislation but on solving problems of families whose children have different citizenships due to the country in which they were born, the SITA newswire reported.
Between 1949 and 1969 parents could not ask for state citizenship of Czechoslovakia if the child was born abroad, even though one of parents had Czechoslovak citizenship. After 1969 the law changed and children born abroad could automatically receive Czechoslovak citizenship.
“According to us, it was unfair for families if this happened, so we wanted to make it easier for these applicants and proposed that these people would not have to fulfil the requirement of residence,” Miklovičová said, as quoted by SITA.
Source: TASR, SITA
Compiled by Radka Minarechová from press reports
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