As Vremya Novostei reports, the Latvian Justice Ministry proposes adding two controversial provisions to the Citizenship Law. They can be seen as narrowing the circle of persons entitled to naturalize. The first amendment specifies in detail the situations in which an applicant may be refused citizenship - even if the person has successfully passed exams in the Latvian language and the history of Latvia. Persons linked to international terrorism, posing a threat to state security or public order, working against the state, or belonging to a criminal organization will not receive the blue citizen passport. Information about applicants' sins will be provided by the special services.
The second amendment - the draft law states that a citizen of Latvia must be loyal to the state. One problem: there is no clear definition of the concept of 'loyalty' in legislation. The Justice Ministry linked the definition of this concept to the restrictions listed above and the oath of allegiance to the Republic of Latvia. For blameless applicants seeking the blue passport, this will mean merely reciting a revised version of the mandatory oath. The future citizen will have to solemnly promise not to act against Latvia as an independent and democratic state in any of his actions.
What exactly is meant by 'loyalty'? The head of the Naturalization Board, Eizhenia Aldermane, stated that those 'who opposed the restoration of Latvia's independence, who were members of the Communist Party or the Interfront before January 13, 1991, former KGB employees, and so on' fall into the list of disloyal persons. This statement by Aldermane from an interview with the newspaper Telegraf was quoted by Russian media.
Press secretary of the Naturalization Board Liga Luksho stated that Aldermane's words were misinterpreted: 'It was not said that people who were members of the Communist Party before January 13, 1991, would be unable to naturalize! Apparently, journalists misunderstood something. It was about those who were members of the Communist Party after January 13, 1991. But even now they do not have the right to naturalize; such a legislative norm already exists.'
But how to determine applicants 'who opposed Latvia's independence'? Liga Luksho noted that her agency is merely an executive structure that acts in accordance with legislation. 'The amendments proposed by the Justice Ministry only say that information about persons who cannot be citizens is provided by the special services,' said the press secretary of the Naturalization Board.
According to the board, about 430,000 residents of the country still remain non-citizens of Latvia. As Luksho reported, over all years of independence, no more than 300 applicants have been refused citizenship through naturalization. The biggest scandal occurred in 2004. The Cabinet of Ministers refused to grant citizenship to Yuri Petropavlovsky, an activist of the Headquarters for the Defense of Russian Schools and the political association 'For Human Rights in United Latvia', considering him 'disloyal' to the state.