Parliament Adopts New Law on “Georgian Citizenship”
On May 28, 2018, a draft law was prepared by the parliamentary committee which envisaged several changes to the existing procedures of issuing Georgian citizenship.
According to the draft law, if a person wants to receive dual citizenship as an exception, which so far has been at the discretion of the President, he or she is no longer obliged to appeal to the President of Georgia. Instead, the application for dual citizenship through the exceptional rule would be presented to the Public Service Development Agency.
As for the exception itself, a person can receive citizenship of Georgia if he or she recognises Georgia as his/her home country, or if s/he had a predecessor internally displaced from the occupied territories, or emigrated due to political or difficult social-economic conditions.
Other preconditions for receiving Georgian citizenship includes if a person was born in Georgia but represented an ethnic minority, was a foreigner and had made a significant investment towards supporting the country’s development, or was a foreigner but was good at sports, art and sciences and wanted to represent Georgia in their career.
The amendments to the Law on Citizenship were soon followed by disagreement within the Legal Committee of the Parliament. The new initiative seemed “illogical” to Parliamentary Secretary Ana Natsvlishvili. , who said the changes to the issue of granting Georgian citizenship “were in the interest of the Minister of Justice, Tea Tsulikiani.”
On July 20, Parliament adopted the above amendments at the first reading.
“It is a very important bill that we have been preparing for a long time. The bill has special value as it relates to the new rules of constitutional status and receiving and granting of citizenship. Our Constitution cancelled the record by which the dual citizenship was forbidden,” MP Eka Beselia stated, noting that the regulation should be “flexible and barriers should not be created where none are needed.”
“We have deliberately left the freedom to the agency to act as they see fit, in order not to create the unnecessary barriers. However, the government will publish a normative act by which the agency should be guided. This will include deadlines and the preparation of the procedures for reviewing an accelerated application. At the level of principles, we managed to reach consensus in order to conclude the agreement,” Beselia added.
According to MP Salome Zurabishvili, this is an important regulation for Georgian compatriots living abroad.
“I know the expectations are great. This is very important not only for our compatriots but for our state as it responds to our demographic challenges,” she said.
In addition, it is planned to increase census on granting Georgian citizenship.
By Mariam Kukhilava