Lithuanian passport applicants hit an obstacle

For many South African Litvaks, a Lithuanian passport represents a reconnection with a family history shattered by war and persecution. It is also a ticket to travel to many countries visa-free. 

That journey has been put on hold after Lithuania froze the processing of some citizenship-reinstatement applications. 

This is a consequence of a decision the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania (LVAT) made in a single case on 18 March, where it interpreted the statutory concept of a person who left Lithuania before 11 March 1990 in a new way. The court departed from the wording of the Law on Citizenship and from more than a decade of clear, settled legal and judicial practice, according to advocate Dainius Ambrazaitis from In Iure, a Vilnius-based Lithuanian law firm that specialises in helping international clients with legal matters in Lithuania, particularly Lithuanian citizenship by descent. 

Lithuania generally allows descendants of people who left or were exiled from Lithuania before 11 March 1990 to hold dual citizenship, meaning they do not have to renounce their current nationality. 

Ambrazaitis explained that the current uncertainty comes down to how to interpret what it means to “leave Lithuania” before 1990, as clarified by the Lithuanian legislator in 2016. According to this, any person who had an ancestor who left Lithuania before 1990 would be able to acquire citizenship with no conditions. There is one exception: the departure must not have been to the territory of the former Soviet Union. 

“This clear legislative intent was applied consistently for a decade, both in the minister of the interior’s citizenship-reinstatement orders and in court judgments in the more complex cases requiring judicial intervention,” said Ambrazaitis. 

The case that triggered the debate concerned a person whose ancestor emigrated from Lithuania in 1921, shortly after it regained its independence. The LVAT, taking an unexpected turn, held that this family’s ancestor had not left for important political reasons and that, in the court’s view, Lithuanian citizenship without renouncing the citizenship already held therefore could not be reinstated for the family. 

The court examined whether, in such early historical circumstances, the reasons for emigration, whether political or economic, should be taken into account when assessing eligibility for citizenship reinstatement. 

“In other words, the court has introduced the new condition [that emigration allegedly should be for important political reasons] while such additional conditions are not set out in the Law on Citizenship, and the Lithuanian legislator in 2016 explicitly eliminated that condition by amending the Law on Citizenship accordingly. Thus, the ruling appears to disregard the clear legislative intent expressed by the Lithuanian Parliament,” said Ambrazaitis. 

Nida Degutienė, managing director and a senior citizenship consultant at Next Steps, a Lithuanian consultancy that specialises in helping descendants of Lithuanian emigrants, particularly Litvaks, apply for the reinstatement of Lithuanian citizenship, explained that this case has stirred a lot of debate. This is because the current wording of the Lithuanian Citizenship Law, in force since 2016, does not expressly require applicants to prove why their ancestors emigrated. 

“For almost a decade, applications have generally been assessed without distinguishing between political and economic reasons for departure,” she said. 

Both the Ministry of the Interior and the Migration Department argue that the decision was adopted with a fundamental error in the application of the Law on Citizenship, and for that reason, the Ministry of the Interior has initiated a special-procedure process at the LVAT for a full legal review of this high-profile judgment. 

“My position, and that of all the In Iure lawyers who have been intensively active in this field for more than 16 years, is clear: this court ruling was rendered in an individual case and binds only the parties to that case; it is not binding precedent, and creates no legal basis for suspending the thousands of other, unrelated applications. The Law on Citizenship has not changed. It remains in force and must continue to be applied. Therefore, extensive legal actions have been initiated to have this unlawful suspension on applications lifted,” said Ambrazaitis. 

As a consequence of this case, said Degutienė, “the Migration Department appears to have suspended a broad range of cases involving ancestors who left Lithuania before 11 March 1990, regardless of the historical period in which they emigrated. According to the complaint, this has included cases involving departures during World War II, the post-war period, and even the Soviet era.” 

Both Degutienė and Ambrazaitis explained that people who have started the application process for Lithuanian citizenship must not cancel their applications and should stay calm, as applications already filed remain valid, and the right to reinstate citizenship is itself not subject to any time limit under the law. 

“For individuals who are still preparing their citizenship-reinstatement applications, this is a good opportunity to continue gathering the necessary historical records and supporting documentation so that their applications are ready to be submitted once the current legal uncertainty is resolved,” said Degutienė. 

“We recommend making sure your documents ‒ archival records, proof of descent, their translations and legalisation ‒ are in order and, if necessary, updated; responding promptly to any queries from the Migration Department (through the MIGRIS system); and keeping all correspondence with the authorities,” said Ambrazaitis. 

For those whose proceedings have been affected by the current situation, there is unfortunately little that applicants themselves can do other than await further developments. “However, it is important to remember that this is a temporary period of legal uncertainty, and we remain optimistic that greater clarity will be achieved in the near future,” said Degutienė.