The right to dual citizenship in Montenegro - securitization as the last act of an old drama?

Abstract

The citizenship law, as a domain of special administrative law, has undergone significant transformations in the last two decades. Among them, the changed attitude towards dual citizenship stands out - from its categorical rejection to acceptance, and even encouragement. The evolution of dual citizenship is visible both in theory, through the constitution of the right to a dual citizenship, and in certain international legal instruments (European Convention on Nationality of the Council of Europe), but also in the field of national legislation of the vast majority of EU member states. In the context of the stated theoretical, international and comparative law standards, the author analyzes the Montenegrin normative framework for exercising the right to dual citizenship. The extreme rigidity of Montenegrin law in this matter can be seen in parameters such as the inability of non-citizens’ children to acquire citizenship on the basis of the ius soli principle, as well as the difficulty of naturalization embodied in the length of required legal residence and the mandatory renunciation of previous citizenship. In addition, it is pointed out that Montenegro is the only state of the former Yugoslavia that has made a reservation to the provision of the European Convention on Nationality which refers to dual citizenship. The author sees the reason for the failure of the recent timid attempt to liberalize the conditions for naturalization in the securitization of this issue, which, contrary to some examples from comparative law, has extremely negative effects on the possibility of dual citizenship. Thus, unfortunately, negative practice from the period of FR Yugoslavia is continued. Finally, the author points out that the dual citizenship conception in Montenegro is incompatible with the postulates of liberal democracy, but also inconsistent with the constitutional definition of Montenegro as a civic state. It is concluded that the necessary liberalization of the legal framework would not only eliminate the mentioned contradictions, but also have a beneficial effect on the real problem of the status of a large number of refugees and internally displaced persons in Montenegro.