Lietuvos Respublikos pilietybės teisinis regulliavimas Europos Tarybos standartų kontekste

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Daugybinė pilietybė; Europos Taryba; Konstitucingumas; Pilietybė; Citizenship; Constitutionality; Multiple citizenship; The Cuoncil of Europe; The citizenship.

ENDue to its specific nature and assignment primarily to the internal competence of states, citizenship (here inafter also referred to as nationality) perhaps is not among priorities of the Council of Europe (CoE). States are not eager to be bound by international obligations in this sphere; therefore, they are reluctant to become parties to the CoE treaties on nationality issues: the Convention on Reduction of Cases of Multiple Nationality and Military Obligations in Cases of Multiple Nationality (1963) and the European Convention on Nationality (1997). Nevertheless, in particular the latter Convention is important not only as the European, but also as the global standard since it consolidates provisions of separate universal treaties on different nationality issues, provides for the definition of nationality, its main principles and related obligations of states, which can be treated to be part of customary international law. Therefore, even though Lithuania is not a party to the above mentioned CoE conventions, it is worth examining the constitutional and ordinary legal regulation of citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania in the light of the CoE standards with the aim to establish whether it is compatible with the universally recognised rules of international law pertaining to nationality. It is also worth noting that the CoE standards are only a certain human rights minimum in the field of nationality, most of them are dispositive rules delimiting discretion of states in regulation of nationality. Undoubtedly, the CoE standards have an impact on the Constitutional Courts interpretation of the constitutional institute of citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania. These standards have been also taken into account in the preparation of the current Law on Citizenship.First of all, the constitutional concept of the citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania does integrate and supplement the elements of the definition of nationality provided for by the European Convention on Nationality. The core element of the citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania - the permanent legal bond between a person and a State - is identical to the definition of nationality as the legal bond between a person and a State under the Convention. [...] Another element of the definition of nationality under the European Convention on Nationality - absence of identity with ethnic origin - is also reflected in the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court regarding the constitutional concept of citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania. This element is related to the aspect of equal rights of citizens. [...] International legal principles of nationality (the right to nationality, avoidance of statelessness, prohibition of arbitrary deprivation of nationality, prohibition of automatic conditioning of nationality by marital status, non-discrimination), as provided for by the European Convention on Nationality, are in essence implemented in the constitutional and ordinary legal regulation of the citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania. [...] Other principles provided for by the European Convention on Nationality have been implemented in regulation of the acquisition and loss of the citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania. Two interrelated principles have been implemented by establishing the acquisition of citizenship on the basis of the jus soli principle for the children of stateless persons, the facilitated naturalisation of stateless persons born and residing in Lithuania, the prohibition to renounce citizenship when a person concerned would become stateless. [...].It has to be emphasised also that in defining its corpus of citizens the Republic of Lithuania could not have any obligation to follow the requirements set for the case of state succession, as provided for by the European Convention on Nationality. The Republic of Lithuania cannot be considered to be a state successor to the former USSR; it had to restore the corpus of its citizens relying on the principle of continuity of nationality that followed from the continuity of the State of Lithuania. [...] In general, it could be possible for the Republic of Lithuania to consider ratification of the European Convention on Nationality. However, if it is a case, apart from removal of the above mentioned minor discrepancies between material provisions of the Law on Citizenship and the Convention, it would be necessary to solve the more serious problem of implementation by the Law of procedural rules of the Convention (the rules regarding procedures relating to nationality, in particular the establishment of reasonable terms for processing applications, the duty to report reasons of negative decisions and the possibility to review those decisions). It would be also necessary at the time of ratification to make the declaration of the Republic of Lithuania on exclusion of Chapter VII of the Convention (that contains rules on military obligations in cases of multiple nationality) from the application of the Convention for the Republic of Lithuania. The point is that the constitutional principle of equal rights presupposes the prohibition to grant privileges due to the fact that a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania holds another citizenship; therefore, this citizen could not be released from the compulsory military service because of the reason that he has already fulfilled this kind of service to another state. [From the publication]