Citizenship Act Still Unresolved

The government coalition still has its work cut out for it when it comes to the Citizenship Act, which has been at the centre of various conflicts for over a year.

 

Coalition meeting (c) The Daily

The current law was put in place by the former government in reaction to legislation in Hungary that offered citizenship to all ethnic Hungarians abroad. The Slovak law counteracted by stripping citizenship from anyone taking dual citizenship.

Now the coalition plans to push through an amendment restoring partially the right for people to have multiple citizenship, but the details are still up in the air.

Coalition partner Most-Hid, which got the vote of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia, is not happy with where talks are heading and party head Bela Bugar even turned to the Constitutional Court earlier this month contesting how stripping people of their citizenship was anti-constitutional.

Local head of the Hungarian coalition party SMK, Laszlo Gubik, openly admitted that he had taken on Hungarian citizenship, but that he was not willing to give up his Slovak one, referring to the Constitution. The current law denies him this privilege, though, and so he automatically lost his citizenship by taking that of another country.

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