Union of lawers and political scientists of Armenia
"Mkhitar Gosh" Yerevan - 1996
Citizenship is the first and fundamental element of a person's status. It's the stable legal connection between a person and the State which is expressed in the integrity of mutual rights, duties and responsibilities. The most important effects for a person such as the volume of his rights, liberties and duties are connected with citizenship, so it's quite natural, that the most important norms of RA citizenship are intreduced into the RA constitution and the chapter 2 named "Fundametal rights and liberties of a person" begins with an article devoted to RA citizenship:
The law norm according to which "Every person has right to acquire citizenship in accordance with the procedure determined by the law" and "People of Armenian nationality acquire RA citizenship in a simplified order"/article 1, part 2/ has much.
This particular statement is expressed also in the article 14. of the Constitution. It means that not all the demands determined by the law "About RA citizenship"article 13 part 1 refer to people of Armenian nationality, The above-mentioned demands are the following "he or she has been constantly living in RA during the last three years, can communicate in Armenian and knows the RA constitution".
In the article 14 part 2 of the constitution accepted in 1995 it is stated that "An RA citizen can't simultaneously be a citizen of another State". This norm is literally stated in the law "about RA citizenship" article 1 part 3. In other words the existing Constitution of RA and the law "About RA Citizenship" simultaneously refuse the phenomenon of double citizenship, a circumstance which gives rise to many quarrels today. Each state has right to regulate the procedure of receiving and revoking citizenship by each person".
Double citizenship arises when States have different principles especially in settling problems connected with the acquiring citizenship for example principles of blood or land. It inevitably brings about a clash of citizenship laws and establishes a double citizenship situation. For example RA citizen's child born in the territory of USA or Argentina is an Argentina or USA citizen according to their and at the same time he or she is an RA citizen, according to the RA citizenship law.
Very often a child who has parents of different citizenship or who is adopted by a foreigner acquires double citizenship.
The law on the RA citizenship states that a child acquires RA citizenship if his or her parents are RA citizens at the moment of its birth. A child acquires RA citizenship if one of its parents is an RA citizen and the other is unknown at the moment of his birth, or has no citizenship. If at the moment of the child's birth one of his parents is an RA citizen and the other is a foreign country citizen, their child acquires citizenship in accordance with the written agreement of its parents. In case of absence of such an agreement the child acquires RA citizenship if he was born in the territory of the RA or its parents live constanly in the RA, or if he becomes a person without citizenship in the case of not beeing granted RA citizenship. /article 11/. If a child is born in the territory of the RA and his parents have no citizenship, he acquires RA citizenship. In other words the law "About RA citizenship" thoroughly excepts the cases giving rise to double citizenship, as it causes serious difficulties when a person having double citizenship is connected with two States and must obey the laws of both States. Double citizenship brings about several difficulties for its bearer, as each State expects him to carry out his civic duties. The number of these duties is not small, to say nothing of such ones as military service and tax payment.
Double citizenship will make its bearer "forget" about his duties and remember only about his rights. Besides, there may be emigration of the population from one country to the other.
This is proved by the world State practice concerning double citizenship. That's why States always show negative consideration for such situations and sign treaties averting cases of double citizenship. So people having citizenship of two countries, according to the treaty, are made to choose one of them and the other one is stopped. Anyway the State doesn't recognize any rights following from other citizenship. More over, such citizens often have limited rights.
There exists such a situation in most of the Western countries for which double citizenship is an unnecessary democratic load.
It's necessary to notice that the experience of civilized states in this question has been used by many CIS countries. Each country has used it in its own way. For example the Kirghiz Republic Constitution directly, without any hint doesn't accept Kirghizian citizens' having citizenship of another country /article 13/.
The Turkmenstan Republic Constitution of 1992 acts similarly. The Byelorussian Republic Constitution of 1994 doesn't accept the phenomenon of double citizenship either, stating only that "the acquiring and losing of citizenship is realized in accordance with the law". /article 10/. In this connection a little concession is noticed in the Lithuanian Republic constitution of 1992 where it is said "Nobody can be a citizen of L.R and another country at the same time, except the cases determined by the law" /article 12/.
There is a similar formulation in the Kazakh Republic Constitution of 1993 which states that "No Kazakh Republic citizen is allowed to acquire citizenship of another country except the cases determined by the K.R interstate contracts". /article 14/. Of course, we can't say that there aren't any countries directly confirming double citizenship in their constitutions. For example the Russian Republic constitution includes a direct formulation about double citizenship /article 62/. We have to notice that the. R. has 30 million compatriots abroad, in the republics of the former-Soviet Union and there are many fundamental questions concerning it. But we consider that such approach to the fortune of Russians living abroad is very simplified and has political character.
In this connection we can find many interesting examples in constitutions of several countries. For example in the constitution of Spain of 1978 it is said "The State may sing a treaty about double citizenship with the Iberoamerican countries or the countries which had or have special connections with Spain. In Great Britain the Ireland citizens are considered Britain citizens too. But Ireland doesn't reciprocate to it. It isn't difficult to guess the reason. The divergence in the number of these two countries' inhabitants is great. So the direct approval of double citizenship principles is rather a political trick than a democratic reference. A similar fact is known in the political history when a Middle East region country has practically subordinated the neighbour country to its will, skilfully using the double citizenship situation owing to the vast majority of its compatriots in that country. In fact, the treaty about double citizenship signed by these two countries compels one of the sides to endow its interests. In the case of refusing double citizenship The law "about RA citizenship" is logical and consistent The law states that ifa RA citizen has acquired citizenship another country by means of breaking the citizenship law, he or she is deprived of the citizenship of the RA.
H. KHACHATRIAN
Member of RA Constitutional Court,
full member of RF Economy,
Finance and Law Academy